


Harry Potter and The Viscount Pimlico

by CaptainLascelles



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-02
Updated: 2020-09-04
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:41:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 41
Words: 52,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26249617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainLascelles/pseuds/CaptainLascelles
Summary: The ancient noble titles of Viscount Pimlico and Baron Purbeck had been extinct for ages.  That was what the world knew.  The Black family knew that those titles belonged to Sirius Black.  They were still active but hidden as was the Black family and all wizards and witches since the seventeenth century.  Is it time for them to be made public again?  Was Sirius the last Black in the noble line?  Harry Potter was Sirius` adopted son but that doesn`t count in the Black family.
Relationships: Astoria Greengrass/Draco Malfoy, Daphne Greengrass/Original Male Character(s), Harry Potter/Ginny Weasley
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4





	1. This is not right

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Friends and Foes](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/677950) by Northumbrian. 
  * Inspired by [Exile](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/677953) by bennybear. 



> • This fanfiction uses some character development from the fanfiction "Exile" by Bennybear.  
> o See https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6432055/1/Exile  
> • This fanfiction uses a character and plot development from the fanfiction "Friends and Foes" by Northumbrian.  
> o See https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9992917/1/Friends-and-Foes

Deep inside the Ministry of Magic, a quill started writing on a scroll of parchment. 

A Ministry official hurried over and read the fresh line. He called out to the room, "It’s happened again! Someone, who is not a known witch or wizard, has performed magic!"

A red robed witch hurried up to the scroll, "We’ve got the name now and the place. That’s better. Send it off to the Aurors. They have to track this person down and find out who this Leo Sirius Blake is and how he is doing this."

In a tiny lockup in Surbiton, Leo Sirius Blake was putting out the fire in the waste rag bin. This is not right. He started the day being angry, fuming and it got worse when he couldn’t find his best 5/8-inch ring spanner. He rolled up a wad of oily rag and threw it into the bin. Something had come out of his hand and set fire to the rag before it hit the bin. He heard someone shout out, "It’s happened again!". Leo looked around, there was no one there.

Just in the last week, if he let himself get really upset, this weird stuff happened. Leo always knew he was just a tiny bit not normal. He had also been told that normal was a setting on a clothes dryer, so don’t worry about it. If it got worse, what would he do? There was still nobody there to answer him.

Of course, he wasn’t normal. He had asked girls out on dates, that wasn’t a problem. Then, they always seemed to have something else to do when he asked them out again. Last night, his latest date had told him that she didn’t know what it was but something about him made her feel creepy. She walked out as quick as she could, didn’t even wait to be taken home.

Leo kept cleaning his great love, besides his mum. It was his 1953 Vincent Black Shadow motorcycle. Leo paid a lot of his wages to rent this secure garage to keep his Vincent in. He had been helping his employer, Arthur Smith, pick up two classic cars from a deceased estate sale. Looking around the sale, Leo saw in a large pile of boxes what he knew to be the motorcycle completely taken apart. He offered ten pounds for the boxes of parts and the executor was glad to be rid of them. It took eighteen months almost every night and weekend to build up the Vincent. To say the least, Leo loved it. But that wasn’t what was making Leo worried. 

It was the weird stuff.


	2. The Librarian

In another place, at about the same time that Leo found his motorcycle; important people in Leo’s future life were finding each other.

Light rain fell from leaden skies as Astoria walked up the wind-swept street and turned into the front door of the small terrace house. The little house had been the last place of refuge for her mother, Daphne, and Astoria after her father’s death and the loss of nearly everything they owned in the wizarding world over two years ago. 

“Hello mum! I’m home.”

“At last! What have you been doing? The shop closed hours ago.” Olivia Greengrass was in the kitchen washing up the supper things for all the house residents.

Taking out her wand, Astoria cast a stream of housekeeping spells. The dishes flew to the sink and the scraper, the pot scour, and the dish cloths got to work on their own. Olivia Greengrass hugged Astoria; “I love you darling, I’d love you more if you got home earlier to do that.”

Olivia Greengrass was not banned from using magic, but she was reluctant to do so in case she was being traced. She did not trust all the new Ministry. They could easily make up new charges against her. She knew she was being paranoid, that was so easy to do these days.

“Your supper is in the oven.”

Astoria suddenly felt famished; “Goody!”

Olivia Greengrass asked her question again; “What have you been doing?”

Astoria placed her supper on the kitchen table and prepared to devour it; “I’ve been working on the computer. The boss is finding more customers online these days than come into the shop.”

Olivia Greengrass shrugged; “The things never work for me!”

It had needed some serious changes to get computers to work for the wizards and witches. After some research and experiments they found the secret. They set up the main part of the device under a copper mesh cover connected to an earth lead, and used long leads to the keyboard, screen, and mouse. The protection, and separation saved the computer from whatever it was in the wizards and witches that made the machines fail all the time.

Astoria had gone back to Hogwarts after the battle. Much to her surprise, she found that even though she had to use Daphne’s old textbooks, life at Hogwarts was tolerable despite her poverty. She acquired a different point of view concerning her fellow students. She could now see the signs of families who couldn’t give their children everything on a gold platter. Her parents had warned her about families like the Malfoys. They used their advantages to make life misery for anyone they could bully. Daphne could put Malfoy in his place with her sharp tongue. Astoria didn’t have the same edge to her speech. Hogwarts after the battle didn’t have the same conflicts. Astoria’s last two years there were calm, and she gained some healing to her soul after her father’s death. 

Three months earlier, Daphne had joined the Goyle gang determined to hunt down the killers responsible for the family’s misery. The new ministry didn’t show much interest in investigating Mrs Greengrass’ accusation that a snatcher gang had murdered her husband Julius on the night of the battle at Hogwarts. Olivia had spent months training Daphne in the skills she would need to carry out the tasks that had to be done. All the Greengrass connections had not given Olivia any hint of who or where the killers were. The hunt would have to be carried out in the underbelly of the wizarding world. Daphne had set out to find any contacts that Goyle and his associates had who might be able to identify who the killer was. Daphne’s absence was painful for Astoria who needed her sister’s support.

The Greengrass family didn’t want to re-appear in the wizarding world, Daphne was still away on her quest which was looking more hopeless as each day passed. The family needed to be together again without anyone hounding them for debts and restitution. The couple they shared the house with were a muggle born wizard and witch who had been partners with Astoria’s father. They had set up their own herbal remedy business and were moving on with their lives. They offered Astoria a job in their business once she had decided to stay with her mother. Each task was easy to learn, but there were so many of them. Astoria had to learn muggle currency, how to use muggle mail, the telephone, and a computer and the internet. Talking to customers was easy. They loved Astoria and her knowledge of herbal remedies won many regular customers for the business. Thank-you Professor Sprout.

There was one private project Astoria had which she didn’t talk about. In her last days at Hogwarts she had received an owl from Draco Malfoy. The message was written on the back of a letter from Daphne to Draco. The letter was fake. It was in Daphne’s hand and was full of the sort of silly fluff that Daphne used to cover her true nature. Someone else had directed her to do it. Astoria sent Draco’s reply on to Daphne. Then she started digging out the truth about what Draco was really doing. She worked out that Draco was not living with his mother. The Malfoy relations had started arranging a marriage for Draco. The most important thing in this sort of marriage was the size of the dowry and how it would replenish the Malfoy vault. When Draco was told of this, he had reacted by leaving the house by the back door and ran until he was safe. 

Draco disappeared from the magical world so completely that he could only be hiding in the muggle world. He didn’t have a wand. The terms of his probation ruled out his using magic and he had not used magic. If he had he would have been imprisoned. 

Draco had learned to live as a muggle. He could still receive owls and send answers. The letter from Daphne proved that he was careful to avoid revealing his location. Astoria had to leave the trail where it was.

Astoria started to learn about the internet. She spent some time after work each day getting familiar with the computer. As an experiment, Astoria typed names of people she knew into a system called Google. The answers were lists of different people with the same name. The lists were endless and somehow fascinating. She tried ‘Draco Malfoy’, not expecting anything to come up, but it did. Astoria was dumbfounded or would have been if there had been anyone there to talk to. Draco was listed on the staff of a public library on the south coast.

There was nothing else available about him. If Astoria wanted to know more, she would have to go there and find out herself. The branch library which Draco was working in had only one staff member. The website also gave her the opening times. 

Astoria worked out a simple plan. Early on a Saturday morning, she would apparate to a park nearby. The local council website had a map and photograph of the place. That was enough to apparate. Then she would have to wait until the library opened. Saturday morning was the least likely time to have any witnesses.

The plan worked well. There was no one about when she emerged from a thicket in the park. Best of all, along the street was a coffee shop open for breakfast. The Saturday opening time came. Astoria strolled into the library. There was no one at the front desk. Astoria waited until Draco came out from the back room.

“Good morning, may I help you?”

“Yes Draco, you certainly can.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t know you……Oh! Astoria Greengrass! What are you doing here?”

“Looking for you. I know you don’t want to be found. Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone you’re here. I want to know your story. How you learned to survive and apparently do well in the muggle world.”

“Oh! Umm! I don’t know where to start. Who else knows you’re here?”

Astoria decided to take the pressure off. Her gentle Legilimens touch had shown her how panicked Draco was. He was not going to say anything to her if he could help it.

“Look Draco, why don’t I come back at a later time. Meet me for a meal at a place near here after you’ve closed.”

Draco paused, he realised he had to find out which side Astoria was on. If she was hostile, then he would have to run again. Goyle wanted to kill him and his gang were still dangerous. 

The little Italian café served authentic well-known dishes; the conversation started slowly, getting Draco to say anything was hard work. Astoria told Draco everything about herself and her family. Eventually, he had agreed to write to Astoria and give her his history since Hogwarts. Letters came and went over the following months. They were both happy that the magical world ignored such things as the muggle postal service. Draco was not happy about Daphne being on the run with the Goyle gang. Eventually he accepted that he was still safe. Astoria was not going to betray him.

A letter delivered by muggle mail came from Draco to the terrace house. Astoria opened the letter. Olivia Greengrass waited for Astoria to give her the edited version of the contents. “He has agreed to come with me to Gringotts to open his own vault.”

Olivia Greengrass gave Astoria a stern look. “You know, not everyone will be happy about you and Draco. Has he asked to see you again?”

“Yes, he has. I wasn’t expecting that. He asked me to go to his place for a picnic on Sunday. I just realized that I was happy with seeing him socially.”

Olivia Greengrass was still unimpressed; “Don’t go all girly over him. His family gave us a hard time in the bad old days. But I suppose he is showing a semblance of good sense in asking you out.”

The day came. Astoria apparated to Draco’s rented house, then apparated to Diagon Alley with Draco coming by side-along-apparation. Draco had asked Astoria to find a wand he could borrow in case there was trouble. He didn’t want to meet a Goyle ally unprotected. As they approached Gringotts, Draco was grabbed by Ron Weasley and a bunch of aurors. Astoria had managed to stop Draco drawing his wand by hanging on to his arm. Weasley took Draco to a local law office to question him.

Draco was furious. Accusations had been made about Draco being involved in burglary and murder. The accusations were obviously made up. Draco had missed his appointment with Gringotts. Hours later, Draco was released. Astoria was waiting, she apparated them both back to his house. 

“How am I going to do anything in Diagon Alley if that happens just because I show up there. It was all nonsense; they knew it was nonsense when they took me in.”

Astoria waited until the angry flow subsided. “Draco, I know why they did it. They were waiting for us to show up. Gringotts must be quite chummy with the Ministry now.”

Draco stopped pacing around the sitting room and stared at Astoria.

“What happened?”

“I was deliberately bumped into by one of the trainee aurors, a distant relation. She took me to a tea-room and chatted on and on. I filtered a message out of it. The Ministry will give Daphne a free pardon if she surrenders right now and tells the aurors everything she knows about the Goyle gang.”

Draco blinked; “Why couldn’t they just ask you?”

Astoria smiled. “They didn’t know how I would react. We just have to work with what we’ve got. Mum has an owl at her place. As soon as I get back there, I will send a coded letter to Daphne. By the way, I went back to Gringotts and asked to open a vault for myself. We can arrange for any galleons that are owed to you to be paid into that, so you can cut one more of your mother’s holds over you. I will give you access to it; I don’t have any galleons to go in it.”

Draco went back to work in the library. He waited for weeks. Finally, the news came from Astoria. Daphne had talked to the aurors. She wrote out her story; it impressed so many that she was asked to do a version to be published in The Daily Prophet. Daphne was asked to submit more articles for the paper. All Goyle’s gang and his Death Eater family had been arrested and would be given a fair trial followed by a long sentence in Azkaban. The weight lifted off his shoulders. It had been there for so long. 

Draco never mentioned his studies to Astoria apart from learning about the everyday muggle world. Draco was progressing towards a qualification in librarianship. He wanted to continue working in the muggle world. The continuing hostility from his family and wizards in general made it an easy choice.

At the same time, he wanted to keep his relationship with Astoria. Draco wrote to Astoria asking her to visit him regularly. She suggested coming to her mother’s house for a visit.

Draco had one thought, “Uh-oh.”


	3. Classic Cars and Motorcycles

Eighteen months later, Leo arrived at the Classic Cars and Motorcycles workshop riding his motorcycle. 

As usual, on the way he had some admiring and envious looks from pedestrians, car drivers and other motorcycle riders. He was secretly happy, just a bit ecstatic, that it hadn’t conked out during any halts in traffic. The dreadful embarrassment of having to roll to the side of the road and kick start the motorcycle in front an amused audience may at last be behind him. The workshop owner, Arthur Smith, didn’t let on that the sight of the classic motorcycle parked at the workshop was good for business.

Leo thought that maybe the previous owner could now look down from heaven at his big black motorcycle with a bit of satisfaction that his last great task in life was finished. Such are the secret thoughts of a motorcycle tragic.

Arthur was already in the tiny office at the workshop. How strange. Usually Arthur only called in on his way to lunch. This could only mean more trouble for Leo. Arthur bounced out while Leo was unlocking the workshop rolling door. "Leo! Great to see you, my son. Hope you are well today, because we have got a particularly important customer coming to see us."

Leo looked at Arthur, "What do you mean coming to see us? You never let me talk to customers. What’s going on?" Amazingly, Arthur looked a bit uneasy. "Well, the truth is, you see, this bloke, he called up and told me he wanted a Mark 2 Jaguar restored to showroom condition, he said it’s in a sad state right now."

Arthur brightened up a lot, " You know what that means! Money in the bank!" The unhappy strained look returned to Arthurs face. “Then he said he wanted to see the workshop and talk to the mechanic."

It was Leo’s turn to be concerned now. Talking to customers always seemed to lead to trouble for Leo. Leo tried be positive, "It’ll be OK, I’ll just let you do the talking, as usual. The old Rover in the workshop is nearly finished, all I have to do is not let on that all the parts I replaced in it are well used and from dubious suppliers." Arthur put on his hurt and disappointed face. "Now Leo, you know times are tough, we have to be very careful when spending money." Leo kept quiet; Arthur’s businesses always seemed be on the edge of collapse while Arthur himself was never short of cash. 

As Leo parked the motorcycle in the garage a dark green Range Rover rolled past, a serious looking woman in the front passenger seat stared at Arthur and Leo. The Range Rover stopped two doors away, and the woman in the passenger seat got out and scanned the area. A blue Bentley chauffeured by a tall dark woman rolled up and stopped in front of the workshop. A young, dark haired guy wearing old fashioned spectacles got out of the back seat and walked over. Arthur went into his car dealer mode. "Mister Harry Potter! How do you do! I'm Arthur Smith and this is Leo Blake."

Harry Potter looked at the Bentley driver and nodded once. The Bentley slowly rolled away. Harry turned to Arthur and smiled. "Good morning Mister Smith, pleased to meet you." Arthur nattered away for quite a while. Harry smiled and nodded without looking at Leo once. Leo started edging away into the workshop. Harry interrupted Arthur, "Actually Arthur, I would like to have a private conversation with Leo."

Arthur gasped and looked at Leo. Harry smiled. "Don't worry I will give you the restoration job. It seems that I have a connection with Leo that has nothing to do with motors." Meanwhile Leo noticed another dark coloured Range Rover parked three doors back from the workshop. So, that is two cars loaded with what looked like bodyguards watching Harry, Arthur, and Leo. Leo decided that his default response was required, that is, deny everything and act dumb.

Harry walked over to Leo and smiled. "Leo, let’s go and get a coffee. I have something interesting to tell you."

Leo looked at Arthur who looked worried but nodded to Leo. Harry turned to Arthur. "Don't worry Arthur, I’ll have the Mark 2 delivered here soon."

"Alright Leo?" Leo carefully nodded without saying anything. What was there to say? This was already a strange day.

The almost silent Bentley rolled to a stop at the workshop, Leo didn't see Harry give any hint of summoning the driver. Harry walked to the far side and opened his door. "Get in Leo, we’ve got protector sheets on seats, so don't worry about your greasy overalls." Leo got in.

Harry gave Leo a takeaway cup of coffee. Leo tasted it, it was hot and sweet, just the way he liked it. The customised rear seat console of the Bentley contained a generous supply of coffee and cakes. 

Harry smiled at Leo and began to speak. "We’ll just cruise for a while. I am here to invite you to meet the legal representatives of the Pimlico family trust. You don’t know what that is do you?" Leo shook his head. Harry nodded; "I think the saying is that 'You will hear something to your benefit', or something like that. Tell me Leo, what do you know about your father?"


	4. What do you know about your father?

Leo looked at Harry who just raised his eyebrows and smiled again. "I only know what my mother told me. They met outside a rock concert where my mum had been in the crowd. He told her his name was Sirius Black. There had been an incident, a fight of some sort, and this Sirius bloke seemed to want to get my mum away. He was tall, dark, handsome, so Mum said. He talked a lot, asked Mum about every detail of what she saw, she had to admit that all she saw was flashing lights and heard some bangs like fireworks. He seemed to be satisfied with that and offered to take Mum home. He had an old Triumph Bonneville motorcycle which mum just loved; he even had a helmet for her which fitted. Mum still gets excited whenever she talks about that one pillion ride home. When they got to her little flat, she invited him in for coffee. Mum said they talked a lot, mainly about her. All he said about himself was that he worked in law enforcement and he wasn’t allowed to say anything more. He asked Mum for her phone number at work and what times he could call to take her out properly." Leo looked uncomfortable, "Well, things got very friendly after that. My mum was not a tart, that’s just the way things were back then. She was between boyfriends; she was on the pill and they used a condom. They were careful." 

Leo was now red in face. "I don’t know why I’m telling you all this. I don’t know you from a bar of soap. For some reason I just can’t keep my mouth shut." Leo looked at his cup of coffee with sudden suspicion.

Harry smiled again; "Don't worry Leo, the coffee is safe, it hasn’t been spiked. So! Two contraception measures and I’m certain that Sirius also used a ‘fail safe’ preventative. It seems that the infinite wanted you to be born and nothing was going to stop that."

Leo stared at Harry; "You know him, you met him. I wanted to believe what my Mum always said that he was some kind of undercover police or secret agent and something bad happened to him. Mum always loved the whole James Bond 'right always wins over evil' thing. I just didn’t know of course. As I grew up, I got more sceptical about it all. So, what was he really like?"

Harry stared back; he wasn’t smiling now. "Your mum was right. Sirius was fighting a secret war. It was war, it was very secret. A lot of people got killed. Both my parents were murdered. This was just over a year after you were born. At the time, my parents were in hiding. It was thought that Sirius was the only person who knew where they were. The authorities assumed that Sirius betrayed my parents. He was imprisoned, never to be released. The real situation was that another man, Peter Pettigrew, was the secret keeper. Pettigrew faked his own death and hid. No one could prove that Sirius was innocent, not until much later."

Harry paused and stared into space for a while. "After he met your mum, Sirius was fighting and hiding all the while. He didn’t want to do this; the enemy was getting more dangerous all the time. I can only guess at what he intended but I think he was afraid that any more contact with your mum would have put her in extreme danger. I’m certain that if he knew about you, he would have looked after you somehow."

Leo was getting uneasy. This was a lot to try deal with. "So, where is he now?"

Harry took a deep breath. "It still hurts me a lot, Sirius escaped from prison but was killed in another battle. Someday you might get to read about it in a history book, but that’s all I want to say about it right now."

Harry gave a half smile. "There’s a lot more you need to know. My parents were well off, they left me quite a fortune." Harry patted the arm rest. "Hence I get to ride in this. Sirius was well off and he didn’t want his own family to get their hands on the money for very good reasons. He was my godfather, he adopted me and made me his heir. So, I’m your brother, by adoption. There is also another matter that has recently come to light."

Harry looked carefully at Leo. "How are you going? Still working through it all, hang in there. The Black family wanted to drop off the legal radar a long time ago. Some ancestors were quite important in 'ye olden times'. The birth of the eldest male of each generation was registered but that was all they would do. They didn’t want to acknowledge that the family had a trust fund which the eldest male Black inherited. At first this fund was small and claiming it was risky as it would certainly reveal the hidden Black family. The lawyers renewed the trust fund under a different trustee name for each generation. If you want to claim it, it will be yours."

The Bentley had slowed and then parked in front of a Georgian terrace house in a posh part of Pimlico. Harry looked at the house then asked. "If you want to find out more about this, I’ve arranged a meeting for you with the estate executors, they’re waiting inside now, shall we go in?"

Leo wasn’t stupid, but this was right off the scale of anything he had experienced before. Leo was always the loser, the nice guy who came second in every race. "Nearly half of me is saying I should run for it right now and never look back. The other half plus a bit is saying grab whatever it is and hang on. For some reason, that I really don’t understand, I’m listening to everything you’ve said, and I want to believe it. Let’s go in."


	5. Purbeck Square

Leo opened the car door and climbed out. He looked down at his oil stained overalls. "I’m not dressed for a meeting like this."

Harry laughed. "Don't worry. The meeting is around the downstairs kitchen table, my favourite meeting place. All my best meetings have mugs of builder’s tea and chocolate cake and don’t worry if you drop some."

As they approached the front door it was opened by a tall middle-aged man, wearing what looked like a hotel staff uniform. "Good morning Mister Potter, Mister Blake, the gentlemen you are expecting are in the main kitchen, just down the stairs."

Harry walked straight in. "Thanks John, we’ll stay for lunch as well." John replied with the straightest face Leo had ever seen. "Very good, Mister Potter."

Leo had watched period dramas on TV with his mum. She loved them, Leo shook his head and laughed at them. Now, here he was in an episode of Upstairs Downstairs. Along the wide hallway was an open door. It would have been concealed if it had been closed. Harry turned in and quickly went down the stairs. At the bottom, a doorway led to a kitchen that was the width of the house and longer than it was wide. In the middle was a classic kitchen table with plain timber chairs, there was a large pot of tea, four mugs and plates and a large chocolate cake. Two well-dressed men stood up when Harry entered.

The older one grabbed Harry’s hand and shook it. “Harry! Good to see you again, and Mister Blake as well. I’m Roger Kenworthy and this is Gordan McDonald. We are representing Kenworthy, Le Blanc and Gomes. We have the honour of overseeing the Pimlico family trust on behalf of the Black and Pimlico families.”

After shaking hands all-round, the solicitors asked Leo and Harry and to be seated.

Kenworthy began talking. "This isn't a will reading as such, as Sirius' will only mentioned Harry to the exclusion of all others. However, there are other issues that Sirius either ignored or didn’t know about. These are the hereditary titles and the Pimlico family trust. Firstly, Leo, if you wish to claim your hereditary titles you only need to sign a formal claim letter which we have in your documents here and you will become Baron Purbeck and Viscount Pimlico. These titles are real and when activated put the Pimlico family trust at your disposal. If you don’t want the titles, then things stay the way they are, no titles - no money. If you accept, you will get an income of more than 80 million pounds per annum and a list of properties for your personal use. These include this house and the neighbouring houses on both sides in Purbeck Square, Swanfleet Hall near Swanage in Dorset, rural retreats in Donegal County, for trout fishing, the highlands of Scotland, for hunting, the alps in France, for skiing, and a villa on the Mediterranean coast near Nice. There are also security services, chauffeured cars, helicopters, private jets, and pocket cruise liners if you a need a little break away from it all. The trust has many properties rented out, shares and investment funds which may occasionally give you an income a lot higher than what I mentioned before.

Kenworthy put a simple letter printed on parchment in front of Leo. "Before you sign this however, I think Harry wants to talk about some issues you will face."

Harry turned to Leo. "Leo, it is certain that your name will become generally known, just because you are a real lord. People will make life difficult, you will be followed and photographed everywhere. The titles don’t give you any privilege or protection. There will be attempts to kidnap you and your family for ransom. As well, there are other issues I can help you with after you have signed up. If you don’t want this sort of life, I will give you a lift back to Fulham and you can carry on working for Arthur."

Leo sat and thought for at least two seconds. "Where do I sign?"

Kenworthy gave Leo an old-fashioned fountain pen, "Please use my pen". Leo put his signature on the parchment. The ink was shiny blue and then turned black when he lifted his hand off. Leo stared at the page, "What was that?"

Kenworthy smiled and replied. "That's a special sort of ink that can't be changed. Well I think that’s more than enough for today. Oh! I’ll need your bank account details as well. Just fill in this form and the first monthly instalment of six million eight hundred thousand pounds will go into your personal account. Your bank will certainly want to talk to you about what you’re going to do with it."

Leo copied his account numbers onto another form which was collected into a legal document folder. McDonald handed Leo a massive ring binder. "Here are the latest reports on the portfolios in the family trust. Please have a look at these, we can make any changes you like, but please take our advice before changing anything. Harry has had some experience with this sort of thing, he would be a good advisor."

Kenworthy stood up. "Thank-you Leo, Harry, call any time and Gordan or myself will help you. Gooday Leo, Harry." The two legal types climbed the stairs and were gone. 

Leo sat and stared at the ring binder; it was about 10cm thick. He turned over a few pages, each page was a different property or company or investment fund. He couldn’t help it; his mouth was just hanging open and nothing came out.

Harry took over. "Let’s have lunch, Mary! Some sandwiches and tea in the library please."

Mary stepped in from the doorway. "Yes, Mister Potter. Are you finished with the kitchen now?"

Harry laughed. "We’ll get out of your way." Harry picked up Leo’s folder and guided Leo out the door and up to the hallway. "I should give you a quick tour. You can move in straight away, John and Mary are your household staff, of course you can make your own arrangements as you wish. They aren’t married by the way. John is happy with general tasks around the house. His number one job is to stop the riffraff from getting in. Mary is cook-housekeeper and she is particularly useful. John is ex Royal Marines and Mary served for years in the Metropolitan Police. They are both fifty something. You’ve seen the kitchen, there are pantries, storerooms, and a wine cellar down there and an under-cover connection to a mews house at the back. There is undercover parking and a workshop under the mews house for your motorcycle. John and Mary have their own flats above that."

Leo started to get his thoughts back in order. "How many people does it take to keep this place clean and so on?" Harry started along the hallway. "Don’t know. All the cleaning, washing, and ironing is arranged with service companies that come in each day, John and Mary look after the details. One of the things you have to get used to is that you can pay for all that and not notice it."

Harry turned into a small room; "This is the first reception room, visitors who can prove they are allowed in are seated here until you’re ready to see them. John has a little room on the other side of this where he can keep an eye on anyone coming to the door, it’s also the household office. Next, we have the main reception room, out the door and past the hidden stairway and the main stair way."

This room was much larger and quite grand, the decor and furnishings were real Georgian. Leo was led through a series of rooms and floors which would take some getting used to. A formal dining room, a drawing room on the first floor, master bedroom suite, other bedrooms on upper floors and finally a library on the first floor with a lot of books which it turns out were bought from pre-loved book dealers and hadn’t been touched in ages. Sandwiches and tea were waiting for them.

Leo turned to Harry, "Have you got all day to spend with me? Haven’t you got a job to do?"

Harry gave Leo a quick smile, "As a matter of fact, I have got all day to spend with you. I am doing my job right now. You’ve only just started learning how important you are, to me and to a lot of others, because of who your father was and because of who you are right now."

After his second excellent sandwich Leo let some nagging thoughts catch up with him. "Harry, how did you find me? How are you so sure about me being lord so and so? What about my mum? She would be starting work at the cockroach palace restaurant right now." Harry put his cup down, "You need answers to all those questions."

"First, the cockroach palace restaurant was closed by the health inspectors at 11 o’clock, so your mum is unemployed right now. An associate of mine met her outside the place and offered her a new job starting tonight. She will be house sitting a terrace house in Purbeck Square, next door in fact. I advise you most strongly to allow me to move your mother and yourself out of your flat this afternoon. The houses here are heavily protected. I just hope it is enough to protect you both."

"Second, I know you are Sirius Black’s son because your mother put his name on your birth certificate. The lawyers from every generation knew about the titles and family trust fund but the Black family weren’t interested. They had their reasons which would sound silly to you right now but maybe you will see later."

"Third, why was your name suddenly so important? This is where we start on the weird stuff."

Leo frowned, surely Harry couldn’t know; "Weird stuff, what weird stuff?"

Harry looked at Leo; "Your weird stuff, fires starting, things breaking or disappearing just because you are upset." Leo suddenly felt all cold, how could anyone else know about that; "How do you know about that?"

Harry looked away; "Leo, you know that scientists are pretty certain now that the universe is a much more peculiar place than anyone ever thought it was. Well! I and the people I work with come from the other side of peculiar. In fact, we are just like you, not normal, weird, strange things happen every day. The difference is that we have learned how to get some control over it. The easy way to explain it is to accept that magic is real, and wizards and witches can control it; most of the time; sort of."

Harry paused, looked at Leo and continued; "Now, magical people didn’t always keep their magic a secret. However, most of the world started to get very frightened of magic, they started burning anyone they thought were witches and so on. So! In 1692 witches and wizards got organized and decided to become secret. They all agreed to a thing called The International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy. Leo, if you are going to use magic instead of being a victim of it, you are going to have to agree to be bound by this secrecy. You can’t tell anyone outside the magical world what is going on with you. There are exceptions of course, close family, like your mother. They must be bound to this secret as well.


	6. Life Changes

Leo took another sandwich and had a sip of tea. He carefully ate the sandwich, finished his cup of tea, and finally thought of something to say. "I suppose that would explain a few things, actually. I think I feel a bit better about the weird stuff. Also, it looks like I`m not on my own like I was before."

"Leo, you`re not on your own.” Harry jumped up. “There is new world open to you now which will give you more than you can imagine. Also, you have a foot in the old world, Viscount Pimlico, quite a big one and I`m not talking about your oversized steel capped boots."

Harry took a folded parchment from his jacket pocket. "Leo, you haven`t been free to move away from this or move into it because of your family, your father`s family that is. They were nearly all very magical, and they used it to enforce some rules that are holding you back right now. Generations ago they set up a rule over the life of their children which went along the lines of, 'If you have children and are not married to someone we approve of, your children will never be magical.' That applied to you, your mother and father never married, so your magic, that you inherited from Sirius, was stopped from showing up. 

Curses like this go against nature so it started to break down. Each time the magic broke out, an alarm was set off in headquarters which said more or less, 'A person we don`t know about is doing magic.' This is how we found your name and we followed the connection to Sirius."

"You can claim your proper place in the magical world with this. Just read it out loud then sign at the bottom." Harry lay the parchment out in front of Leo.

_I, Leo Sirius Blake, claim forever the rights and promises which are mine by the gift of my father, Sirius Orion Black._

_I reject the restraints put on me by my ancestors and I repudiate the words spoken against me intended to limit and hinder the full expression of my true self._

_. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ._

_The Right Honourable, Viscount Pimlico_

_The Right Honourable, Lord Purbeck_

Leo read and re-read the few lines. "Is this all? No spells, chanting in secret languages or anything like that?"

Harry touched the parchment; "This is deeper than any spell. It is putting back in place what should always have been. Taking it away from you was wrong. You have inside of you all the authority needed to break the limits and restraints."

Harry offered Leo an old-fashioned fountain pen. Leo took the pen, "Another one, is this magical too?" Harry grinned and nodded; "Just say the words and sign. The ink is magical, it will appear bright blue and then turn black. It can`t be erased or changed. There are charms on the parchment, the ink and the pen which together will verify that it is really you who made the signature. If you want to be really old-fashioned, we can use a goose feather quill."

Leo gave a quick laugh and read out the statement and signed it. The ink turned from bright blue to black and nothing else happened. Leo gave the pen back to Harry and looked around; "Nothing seems to be different. What was supposed to happen?"

Harry looked serious; "Nothing straight away, all that has happened is that you have opened the door to your new life. You must go through and start learning how to do things in a new way, which in most cases is a very ancient and hidden way. You will need lessons on how to do it."

Harry patted Leo on the back; "Now, let`s tidy up some of your old life. We`ll go back to the workshop and pick up your Vincent. Arthur will have to find out that you won`t be his doormat anymore. My Mark 2 should be there by now and I already have the man I want working on it talking to Arthur. When you get back here you can ride into the mews workshop behind the house. The door will automatically open as you ride up to it."

The blue Bentley rolled up and stopped just as Harry and Leo went out the front door. As they rode away Leo asked as casually as he could, "I suppose the way all the doors open, and cars arrive just as you need them is magic." Harry smiled again; "Partly, our driver is Rhian, she is a witch. I have a mirror-phone which other people like Rhian listen in to when I`m on duty, it also shows them where I am and if I`m moving." Rhian looked over her shoulder at Leo and smiled. The device Harry held up was the shape of a mobile phone, but it looked just like a mirror. "This is a mirror-phone, it`s a purely magical communication device and a mobile phone. All in one. You can pick one up from the Weasleys. That should be fun. They are some of the people I will get to help you with your lessons." Harry choked, snorted, and laughed out loud. Leo didn`t quite know what to make of that.


	7. Hogwarts! What`s that?

The black motorcycle rumbled into the narrow mews lane. There were cars parked in the lane and not much room. Then Leo saw John waving him into an open garage door. Leo carefully steered into the garage, shut the motorcycle down, and rolled it onto its main stand. The door rolled shut and John came in obviously admiring the gleaming machine. "Your mother has arrived next door, sir. If you care to come up to your rooms, sir, I have a hot bath drawn for you and some fresh clothes laid out. Mister Potter is talking to your mother right now. When you are changed, he would like to meet with you in the main reception room."

Leo enjoyed a hot bath in his own bathroom in his own private suite of rooms on the second floor. The outfit John laid out for him was straight out of the fashion catalogue for a 'man about town'. Leo had never owned anything like it before. He looked around and noticed a few small things from his own room in the flat but not much. John saw Leo scanning the rooms; "Some of the security team combed through your things and picked up a few appropriate pieces. The rest has been crated up and will be disposed of if you don’t really want it. Your lock-up has been cleaned out and stuff from there is in a workshop next to the mews garage."

Leo paused for a moment; "Security team? I suppose Harry told me something about them. I’m having problems with the notion that there are people all around me who are doing all sorts of things on my behalf which I just don’t know about."

John paused for a second; "Yes sir, it will take some getting used to. I, myself have never been in service before, although I did work on the staff of some senior officers in the Royal Marines. That did prepare me for some of this. I know you didn’t ask for my history, but a few things might help settle your mind. I am not magical, but I know a bit about it. My daughter got her Hogwarts letter when she was eleven and went off to be trained as a witch. Every school holiday was a revelation as she practised her skills around the house. I’m on the edge of the magical world, in the secret fold but not really part of it."

Leo stared at John; "Hogwarts! What’s that?"

John started to move towards the door; "Hogwarts is the British school for witches and wizards. My daughter was in Hufflepuff house. There are four houses in the school, Gryffindor for the brave, Ravenclaw for the brilliant, Hufflepuff for the industrious, and Slytherin for the ambitious.”

“Mister Potter will fill you in on what he has planned for your education. It’s time to meet in the main reception room."

John opened the door to the main reception room and announced, "Lord Pimlico." He then stepped aside to allow Leo to enter, giving Leo a huge wink as he passed.

Louisa Blake was standing in front of a sofa with Harry Potter, she was still dressed in her cook’s uniform whites. She stared at Leo for at least four seconds; "Leo! What are you doing here!"

Leo gave a sheepish grin; "Hi mum." Louisa was quite shocked but recovered; "Harry, you and your agent said I would be working for this viscount person for a week just to see if I could stand him. Is this a joke?"

Harry put on his best serious face; "It may take a while for this to seem real Louisa, but Leo really is Viscount Pimlico. It is all because of his father, Sirius."

Louisa took a deep breath, then sat down on the sofa. She bent forward and hid her face in her hands. Leo sat down beside her; Harry sat down in another chair. After some minutes Louisa looked up; "It’s been many years since I thought about him. It looks like I’ve cried all the tears I could over him. As you grew up Leo, I saw more of him in your looks, but you were always your own person. So, Sirius left you with more than an insane love for motorcycles."

Harry slowly stood up; "Louisa, I would like you to move into the house next door. It’s pretty much the same as this one. If you want to, you can start getting used to being Lady Blake, mother of a real lord. There are people there right now to help you. I’ll let Leo tell you about what has happened so far. Leo, I’ll pick you up in the morning at 9 and we’ll go and see some people about your lessons."

As Harry went out the front door the blue Bentley was waiting in the street. On the outside the houses in Purbeck Square looked quite normal. They had been rented out to companies and private tenants since they were built. No magic happened here until the arrival of the real owner, Leo Blake.


	8. Diagon Alley

The following morning, Leo had finished a healthy breakfast with his mother down in the huge kitchen. They had discovered secure internal hallways and doors which connected the three houses, so Louisa was able to drop in on Leo whenever she wanted to. There was an ongoing ‘lively discussion’ on the use of these doors. 

Louisa was rapidly getting used to her new life. Instead of whites every day, she had fashions exactly to her taste, provided by Roland and Robert. R and R, as they came to be known as, were obviously delighted to look after Louisa. Roland and Robert were former British Airways cabin crew, they shared a mews flat behind Louisa's house.

Louisa had also been introduced to the chauffeured Rolls-Royce Silver Seraph Park Ward which was deemed to be the only suitable means of transport for her. It caused a lot of interest when she went to the goodbye drinks for the former cockroach palace staff on the previous night, as did the slightly obvious bodyguards.

At 9, a dark red Landcruiser arrived at 15 Purbeck Square. Harry got out and went to the door. The door opened and Leo came out. "What! No Bentley today." Harry motioned to Leo to get the back seat. "No! No Bentley today, I usually make use of all the carpool. We have Range Rovers, Jaguars, Mercedes-Benz, BMWs, Landcruisers, black cabs and others, just so that we’re not always so obvious. Today we’ll go to Diagon Alley. That’s a hidden street in the centre of London. It’s the centre of retail for magical people in the U.K. It has been there for ages and is completely hidden from the outside world. The outsiders are called muggles by the way. There are lot of new words for you to learn."

Leo watched the leading and trailing dark cars for a while, "They don’t seem to get separated from us no matter what the traffic is like." Harry looked around; "They are using magic, a particular set of charms which prevent anyone one else from pushing in or getting aggressive and the traffic lights always favour us.”

“Today we’ll start on a pathway which is set for Hogwarts students being trained to use magic. We’ll get you a wand, textbooks, apothecary things for potions and an owl. We use owls to carry messages and so on, something like carrier pigeons only a lot smarter."

Leo frowned slightly; "John was talking to me yesterday about how he got connected to the magic world. He said his daughter was invited to learn magic at a school called Hogwarts." Harry gave a little laugh; "Yes! Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, I started there when I was eleven. Many of the students come from families with no trace of magic in them, some come from families which are half and half, such as yourself, and the rest from fully magical families, sometimes called pure-blood, and that is nothing to do with race.”

“As well, some children will have magic while other children in the same family have none, so one girl or boy will go to Hogwarts while their brothers and sisters must drudge their way through conventional schools. My mother was a witch and her sister was not, there were problems between them all their lives.” 

“All these muggle relations must keep their mouths shut about magic. I have persuaded our authorities to start allowing them to do non-magical jobs in magical places. People like John, Mary, Roland, and Robert are all close relations to magical people, father, mother, and siblings. They are happy to be part of it without having the gift and the burdens."

The car stopped outside a very ordinary looking building which seemed to defy any attempt to identify it. Harry got out and walked to a plain door. Leo followed Harry into a surprising room. It was a very old-fashioned pub, with a bar, some plain tables and chairs and private alcoves. The bartender called to Harry, "Harry! Long-time no see! Don’t tell me you’re just passing through." Harry gave a friendly wave and kept walking out through a back door. The small yard at the back was surrounded by brick walls. "We are now passing through several barriers between the muggle world and the magical. Muggles are made to feel unwelcome at the front door to The Leaky Cauldron, they also must really concentrate to even see that it is there. You, being a wizard saw it straight away and didn’t feel repelled when you approached it. What we have here is the gateway to Diagon Alley." Harry drew his wand from under his coat. This was the first time Leo had seen a wand. It was just a skinny stick. Harry touched three bricks in quick order and the wall started to re-assemble itself into a gateway. “Welcome to Diagon Alley.”

Leo spent the next hours having his thoughts about magic entirely re-arranged. The people were mostly dressed very oddly. The main fashion theme was medieval. There were robes and cloaks which varied from rich in colour, fabric, and decoration to tatty, worn out and scruffy. Harry and Leo were dressed in casual street clothes, shoes, slacks, and shirts but they attracted obvious stares from the older shoppers. The younger witches and wizards seemed to be happy wearing muggles clothes, mostly jeans and printed t-shirts.

The street was paved with cobbles, the shops were ancient, just like the Shambles in York. The wares sold in the shops were really odd. Harry took Leo to Ollivander’s. “When I first came here old Mr Ollivander sold me my first wand. He is still around but doesn’t do as much as he used to. He had a hard time in the Wizards War. The shop is run by younger relations now.”

Leo came away from Ollivander’s with a wand described as mahogany, 11″, pliable. Harry said that it was the same as his father’s wand. The other shops came and went in a blur. Books, potions, dragon hide gloves, and a cauldron were shrunk into tiny packages and stowed in a backpack which never seemed to increase in weight. Harry insisted that Leo get an owl. When they went into Eeylops Owl Emporium a handsome barn owl flew to Leo and perched on his shoulder. The selection was already made.

Harry was upbeat about the day and announced their last stop; Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes. Leo stopped outside the shop which looked stranger than anything else on the street. “What is this place?”

Harry gave Leo a sideways look which didn’t reassure Leo. “It’s a joke shop. It’s very typical of the magical world, if you are serious about something you start out doing the opposite.” The shop inside was a mass of colour, distracting motion from things that shouldn’t be moving and a thousand different smells ranging from foul to delightful. The young staff smiled and waved to Harry as he made his way to the rear of the displays. Leo followed Harry and they went through a door into a larger room, this room was filled with some more familiar displays of what could be smart phones, cameras, and home security systems. A tall red-haired man broke from a conversation with the one other customer and strolled over. “Wotcha Harry! Need your phone upgraded? The latest model is just out.”

Harry gently placed the palm of his hand on the redhead’s chest. “Hold on Ron! Before you blab too much, I’d like to introduce you to your next customer. This is Leo Blake, he needs a mirror-phone that works properly and isn’t full of little bugs, of any sort.” Harry was grinning and Ron laughed in response. “OK Harry, the model before this one. Shall we set it up now?”

Harry shook his head quickly, “No, no, let him take it home and we’ll set it up later. By the way I should make a proper introduction. Leo is my brother, by adoption. He is Sirius’ son, who no-one knew about for twenty-two years.” Ron’s jaw dropped so much it nearly hit the floor. “Before we go too much further, he is also Viscount Pimlico and Baron Purbeck, for real. Sirius could have been those as well, but I guess he had too many criminals wanting to kill him to think about it. “

Leo reached out and took Ron’s unresisting hand gave a firm shake. “Pleased to meet you Ron. I’m always Leo by the way, none of this titled stuff. I haven’t thought about it before. This is the first time I’ve been introduced like that and it would be just too weird to be known as anything but Leo. So, you’ve known Harry for a while?”

Ron came up for air. “Yeah! We started at Hogwarts together. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be rude, but I don’t think that I’ve met a person with a title before.”

Harry grinned, “Yes, you have Ron. The Slytherin house ghost, the Bloody Baron, and Sir Nicholas the Gryffindor house ghost.” Ron gave Harry what used to be called ‘an old-fashioned look’; “Harry! They have been dead for hundreds of years; Leo is alive, or he seems to be. I don’t know of a single real magical lord.” 

Harry nodded; “There are some wizards who wish they were, and a few who try to call me Lord Potter. The truth is that the nearest I get to be one is the lord in landlord, which I am in a small way. Anyway, the big news is that Sirius isn’t the last Black although the family name is now Blake. There are a lot of people who would love to know this, of course. You can let the Weasley clan know. Kingsley is talking to a selected group in the Ministry and the Wizengamot so the news will get out pretty soon. I’ve been shopping all morning up and down Diagon Alley with Leo and that was noticed. Leo, I paid for all your stuff with wizard credit from your account at Gringotts. That means that all those merchants have your real name as well.” 

Leo looked around; “My head is beginning to spin again. Somebody will have to explain a lot of the things you mentioned.” 

Harry looked concerned; “Right Leo, we will get going now. Ron, can we have that mirror-phone. Charge it to Leo’s account.”

Ron came to attention, “At once m’lord.”

Harry snorted, “Shut-up! That’s not funny!”

Ron handed over a mirror sized box. “Remember! Mum invited you to lunch on Sunday, no working on the weekend. I’m sure Leo will be welcome too.”

Harry and Leo left the WWW shop with the magically slim and light backpack and headed straight for The Leaky Cauldron.

Harry found an alcove in the pub, Leo flopped down in a corner. “I’m trying to take in a lot of stuff today. Something you could tell me; what is Gringotts?”

“Ah! Well, that’s easy and not so easy. Gringotts is the wizards bank. If we had kept going you would have seen a big stone building, quite grand. Gringotts is owned and run by goblins, very magical people, short and very tough. You need to be a lot further into the magical life before you get to deal with them. One thing about them is that they are honest with the money entrusted to them. The old Pimlico vault is still there and earning wizard money for you.”

Leo looked blank. “You’re saying there is even more money?”

“Yes, I know you don’t need any more right now, but there will be.”

“When is this going to end!”

Harry looked concerned, “We should have a drink and then go back to Purbeck Square.”

Harry went to the bar and came back with butterbeers, “These are just a bit alcoholic, they won’t hurt, and there are snacks coming.”

At that moment, a young witch in purple robes rushed up to Harry. “Mister Potter, Can I ask you a question?”

“Hello Daphne, Oh! Ah! Well, I suppose so. Please sit down. Daphne, I’m Harry for you, not Mister Potter.”

Daphne sat down next to Leo without looking at him. “Can you tell me anything about the reports from America about the Murphy gang? They say that they might be coming here because of the pressure MACUSA is putting on them over there.”

Harry gave a confident smile. “Daphne, that will not be happening. We know all about them and they don’t know anything about us. You can put that in your column, from an anonymous source of course.”

Daphne smiled, “Of course! Thanks a lot Harry.”

Harry nodded to Leo, “Daphne, I’d like you to meet Leo Blake. Daphne is a journalist; she has a column in The Daily Prophet.”

Daphne turned to Leo, “Hi! I haven’t met you before, have I?”

Leo opened his mouth to speak but then he suddenly looked around, confused. “Ho! What was that?”

Daphne gasped, put her hand over her mouth, a look of horror came over her; “I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”

Harry stared at Daphne; “Daphne, what happened? What are you sorry about?”

Daphne hissed at Harry; “Harry! This man has no defences! You can’t let him wander around here like this! I didn’t mean to do it! I just gave him a little nudge! You know! Just to see if he would react.”

Harry whispered; “Legilimens.”

Daphne sat up straight; “Any wizard wouldn’t let me see anything. Even a child has some defence, but Leo has none!”

Harry whispered; “You saw his whole mind?”

Daphne nodded. “I’m sorry Leo. I didn’t mean to do it.”

Leo didn’t understand any of it. “Sorry for what? I just thought that my whole life flashed in front of my eyes; like they say when you have a near death experience. I’ve had that riding my motorcycle at times.”

Harry gave deep sigh. “Leo, this is a bit of accidental magic. Daphne can use magic to read minds. Normally wizards and witches grow up in magical homes where they learn to resist attempts to see into their minds. Even a muggle born student at Hogwarts is young enough to develop some defences. You, on the other hand, have no such preparation. The mind reading magic is called Legilimency. The defence is called Occlumency. Leo, as a matter of urgency, you have to learn Occlumency.”

Leo looked wary; “OK, how do I do that?”

Harry looked at Daphne; “Daphne, you already have all of Leo’s thoughts in your memory. You are far more adept at Legilimency and Occlumency than anyone I know, especially me. They tried to train me at Hogwarts, but I just didn’t get it. I want you to train Leo at least to the stage where he can safely mix with wizards and witches.”

Harry gave a sly grin, “I noticed that it took hardly any time at all to read his whole mind.”

Daphne looked from Harry to Leo and back again; “Oh! Well! I don’t know! He has a lot more in him than most Slytherins I had to deal with.”

Much to Harry’s relief Leo smiled and then laughed out loud.


	9. School Days

Times, and places were quickly arranged. Hot snacks were consumed, and The Leaky Cauldron was left behind. Leo had the concept of Floo travel explained. There was a grand fireplace in the entry hall at Purbeck Square. Leo noted it was there and that it was much bigger than was needed even in the bad old days before central heating. Floo travel explained it. Floo travellers would arrive just inside the front door and had to wait there before they were let into the rest of the house. 

Harry took Leo through the process of getting Daphne a permit to use the 15 Purbeck Square secure floo connection. Then he pulled rank and got the permit processed straight away.

Daphne arrived in the entry hall at 4 the next afternoon. John’s mirror-phone gave an alarm and a message, and he hurried to the entry hall. “Ah! Miss Greengrass, Lord Pimlico is waiting for you in the library. This way, please.” 

Daphne paused, “Wait a minute, who is Lord Pimlico? I was supposed to meet Leo Blake here.”

John gave a small smile. “That’s right, Mister Leo Blake is Viscount Pimlico and Baron Purbeck.”

Daphne paused for another second, “Oh! Yes, that’s right. Hmm! He doesn’t think he is though. OK, I’m ready now.”

Daphne’s training for Leo didn’t come out of any textbook. At first, she got him to read out passages from ‘Hogwarts, A History’ while she tried to disrupt him with questions and comments sent to him by Legilimency. At the start, Leo couldn’t get more a few words out without being distracted. Daphne just kept on telling Leo to read the passage while the distractions by Legilimency flowed on. After twenty minutes Leo could finish whole sentences, then after ten minutes more he could sense when he was being pushed by Legilimency, then nudged, then touched.

At 5 o’clock, Daphne called a halt. “That’s enough. You are the quickest learner I have ever seen.”

“I have to go now. Work to do. People to see. Tomorrow is Friday, I will be available at 3 in the afternoon if that is OK, m’lord.” Daphne half smirked.

“Now! you are going to get me annoyed if you call me that again. I’m Leo.” Leo did look slightly stern.

“Well! If I had done to most wizards what I did to you today, they would be trying to hex me right now. Legilimency brings out bad reactions when it is so obvious. You, Leo, are far too forgiving.”

Harry arrived at 10 the next morning. He had with him the smallest person Leo had seen in his life. “Leo, meet Professor Flitwick; he is the recently retired charms professor at Hogwarts. He will give you the best training there is on how to use your wand. I will leave you in his care today. By the way, you are invited to the Weasley’s for lunch on Sunday. I will be here on Sunday morning at 8 and we can ride down to Devon together. I have got Sirius’ old Triumph.” Harry then flooed away. That was weird. 

At last, the promise of a day out he could understand, a long ride on his motorcycle and Harry seemed to be willing to spend the day with him when he didn’t have to. Then he remembered Ron Weasley and Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes. At least the ride there and back will be not so strange.

Professor Flitwick was studying Leo intently. “Leo, Harry told me that there is a safe place for us to practice down in the cellars here. If you have your wand we can go down there and start work.”

Leo called John, “Is there a place in the cellars where we can practice?”

“Oh, you mean the target range. Yes, Mary and I use it for target practice most days.”

Leo stared at John, “Target practice! With what?”

John placed his right hand on the watch band on his left wrist. An automatic pistol came out of the band and expanded to full size in Johns right hand. “With this! A Glock 17.”

“Oh my!” Professor Flitwick exclaimed, obviously delighted with this deadly surprise. “I did some of the charm work on those bands, but this is the first time I’ve seen the finished article. Very impressive, and it works for you even though you’re not a wizard, wonderful.”

John smiled a small, slightly sinister smile. “There is an MP5 in my belt buckle as well. The Ministry only agreed to us working in your protection team if we had some means of defending ourselves. The weapons and the ammunition are charmed to keep working against blocking spells, and they are also charmed to only work for the real owner. If anyone else picks up my weapon, the safety will lock on and can’t be released. We can thank Professor Flitwick for that.”

Leo was once again stunned. The casual mention of military and law enforcement experience had more meaning than was obvious at the time. He allowed himself to be led down to a sub-basement which served a dual role, shooting and spell casting practice. 

Leo’s lessons with the wand were no-where near as tough as Occlumency with Daphne, but he still felt worn out by lunch. Professor Flitwick gave Leo full marks for his first lesson. “If you keep going like this you will finish all the Hogwarts lessons in less than a year. I will be back on Monday at 9 am.”

Somewhere in the last 24 hours Leo’s mirror-phone had been set up. It even had the SIM in it from his old phone. His mirror-phone sounded its conventional ring tone. Leo had not heard it before, he answered it. The call was from his account manager at his old muggle bank. Leo didn’t know he had an account manager but apparently, he did now. The transfer from the Pimlico Family Trust had arrived at his bank. It would still be 3 business days before the funds were available for Leo to use. The banker wanted to know how long the money would be in his account. Leo innocently replied that he had no plans to spend a lot of money and there would be monthly transfers of similar amounts. The banker launched into a spiel about financial advice and insurance. Leo waited for the flood to subside and then finally thought of what to say. “I am getting advice on all of those matters from Kenworthy, Le Blanc and Gomes and that is the way it will stay for the foreseeable future. Thank-you very much, goodbye.”

Daphne arrived at 3 pm. Leo wasn’t looking forward to this session. Daphne sat in one of the leather chairs in front of the fireplace. “Please, Leo sit down. Today I want to tell you about how I learned Occlumency and Legilimency. My father and mother were both skilled practitioners. They could block almost any intrusion without effort. They were almost silent when investigating any unwary subject. They were both Slytherins, like me. This means, in case you don’t know, that they were shrewd, cunning, and ambitious. They also loved my sister Astoria and me, very much. This is why they taught us both to be the best Occlumens we could be. They also taught us Legilimency, so that we could be better Occlumens. This was always going to help us in our professional and business lives, of course.”

“My father and mother both inherited wealth, my family is in the ‘Sacred 28’. That is a list of pure-blood families. These families never allowed any hint of muggle blood to enter the family. This is rubbish, of course. If it were not for hushed up muggle marriages every pure-blood family would have died out ages ago. It’s basic genetics, you would have heard that in your science classes, right?”

“Yes, I remember something like that. Every animal breeder has to be careful to avoid a small gene pool.” Leo thought about how to work the shallow end of the gene pool into a reply. He saved it for later.

The rest of the afternoon was spent talking about family, school days at Hogwarts, what wizards did for entertainment, and holidays. Leo finally asked when the lesson was going to start.

“Oh! This is the lesson; I’ve been lulling you into carelessness with my natural charm. Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Haaa!” The shrill laughter carried on until Daphne finally subsided into guffaws and giggles. 

“I was the Slytherin Ice Queen. Nobody ever caught me off my guard. I had cutting, witheringly scornful put downs for every occasion. Occlumency and Legilimency gave me the edge I needed to keep every Slytherin wary of me. I could hex any of them while they were still trying to remember the spell they wanted to use on me. I was not charming, in the slightest.”

Daphne took a few deep breaths, “I have been touching your mind all through the afternoon, your defences are getting stronger. This is how a wizard will try to penetrate your thoughts. They will try to put you off your guard. You have, so far, been able to stop me getting in easily without really thinking about what you are doing. This is good, but you will have to do better. If you ever get invited to a party where there are wizards like my cousins, there will be trouble. You need a lot more practice before you can face them.”

Leo needed a draft of essence for the revival of the weary. “Do wizards have Friday Happy Hour?”

“What’s that?” Daphne looked surprised.

“Well! A pub or bar somewhere that has cut prices for one hour on Friday afternoon. But I keep forgetting that I don’t have to worry about prices. Let me try again, would you like to go to a nice place for few drinks?”

Daphne really was surprised by this. “Sorry Leo, I have to work. I’ve got to finish my column for The Daily Prophet. Some other time, maybe.”


	10. The Burrow

Sunday morning came at last. It had only been a few days since he had started his new life and it seemed like months. Leo’s mirror-phone chimed. It was a text message from Harry, he would be waiting in the mews lane at 8. Harry had arranged for a riding gear outfitter to visit Leo on Saturday. Leo expected any new gear to take weeks to be made for him. Magic made it happen in a few hours. Leo had a new dragon hide jacket, dragon hide gloves, dragon hide boots, fire and waterproof pants (toughened to the same strength as dragon hide), a set of full length under garments that looked like lycra, but was something hex proof. There were also knee and elbow pads and his old helmet was given a hex proof lining and a communication set linked to his mirror-phone which could be linked with ‘hands free’ talkback to other mirror-phones. The whole outfit was adjusted on the spot to fit without chafing and could be used without ‘wearing in’. The merchant told Leo that his main customers were quidditch players and law enforcement officers who needed hex proof outfits while riding brooms. He really had to find out more about quidditch.

Leo rolled his Vincent out of the garage. He had checked the oil, brakes and lights and was turning over the motor before starting when the Triumph came into the mews and stopped beside him. Harry had a pillion rider. They both got off and removed their helmets. Harry’s passenger was slim and pretty with vibrant red hair in a long plait. “Leo, this is my wife Ginny.”

Ginny smiled warmly at Leo, and then gave him a hug. “Great to meet you Leo. Harry has talked about you a lot. He usually doesn’t talk about people much, but you are special to us all.”

Leo blushed freely, “Oh! Ah, nice to meet you Ginny.” Leo wondered what the rest of the lunch guests would do.

Harry laughed at Leo’s awkwardness. “Just so that you know, Ginny is Ron Weasleys younger sister. There will be other Weasleys there today as well.”

Harry arranged the mirror-phones into a hands-free chat group. Helmets were donned, the bikes were started. The rumbling sounds got some attention from neighbours. They progressed down the mews and out into the street; free at last. Leo noticed that there was one dark Range Rover right behind them. Then he noticed two other motorcycles that looked like street legal Grand Prix machines that alternately shadowed them or took the lead. Security was always there. He didn’t ask for them. Harry assured him that he couldn’t make them go away, no matter what.

It was the best ride ever. No trucks changed lanes on top of them. No boy racers threatened them. They made the trip easily with one stop for a cup of tea. Approaching the destination was odd. Harry warned Leo of the hidden lane to turn into. The security passed the lane and kept going. Harry stopped at a farm gate, Ginny got off and opened the gate, they rode through. Harry slowly started again once Ginny had closed the gate and climbed on. Around a bend was the house, ‘The Burrow’. Now that was odd!

The Burrow looked to Leo to be exactly what it was. Purely magical, magically adjusted to provide exactly what the family needed and nothing more. Leo grew up in welfare housing in Surbiton, he felt far more comfortable at The Burrow than at 15 Purbeck Square. At first, the Weasleys in bulk were a bit overwhelming. He surprised himself with the freedom he had when he talked to the group and individually. He also surprised himself in the way he didn’t identify his tutors. Harry didn’t say who they were either. 

Sunday lunch came and went. After lunch he realized that he was being pushed by legilimency. Leo resisted the push. They were Harry’s in-laws. Who was doing this? Leo looked around and saw in his mind one person, George, the surviving twin, and owner of Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes. Leo looked steadily at George. George looked away and the push went away as well. Leo walked up to George in what he hoped was a friendly manner. “George, tell me how you got started in your business?”

George gave a half smile, “Well, it really started when Fred and I proved to ourselves that we weren’t meant to be students or Ministry officials. We started to get serious about what we really wanted to do, give people messy, unofficial ways of having fun. We left Hogwarts without our NEWTS, a close friend bankrolled us, and the shop took off.”

“Is there anything you want to know about me?” Leo was not quite smiling.

“Well, actually there is. I heard, from an unreliable source, that you were being tutored by Daphne Greengrass. She has got a history of being on the wrong side.” George stopped talking, his eyes moved to where Harry was listening to a long discussion of quidditch tactics.

Leo thought for a few seconds. “Well, Harry has asked a couple of people to help me get ready to be let out on my own in wizard society. I think he is happy with them, why don’t you ask him?”

George looked back at Leo. “That’s OK, Leo. Forget that I mentioned it.”

George was shoved aside by Ron’s wife, Hermione. “Leo, sorry to push in, I don’t know what you know about the wizarding world in general. I just wanted to say that if you wanted to find out about the Ministry of Magic and what we do there I would love to help.”

“Certainly, Hermione, I would love to find out more. I keep hearing about the Ministry without knowing what it is and who is involved. I know Harry of course. There is one thing I wanted to say to someone without Harry listening. It looks like Harry casually mentions something, he suggests something, and all sorts of people nearly salute and say, ‘Yes sir’. Does he have a lot of authority?” 

“He has an important job, but what you are seeing is a lot more than his job. Harry doesn’t talk about his history if he can avoid it. Do you read a lot? Perhaps I can give you a book or two which will help to explain it. When Harry, Ron and I were in Hogwarts together we became known as the Golden Trio. I didn’t like that for a long time, but it helps to show what people today feel about those times.”


	11. More Lessons

Daphne continued working with Occlumency but also started Leo on the subject known at Hogwarts as Transfiguration. Leo was asked to work through each Transfiguration exercise while Daphne used Legilimency to silently push him. Not only did his defence quickly grow but Leo discovered the ancient power of magic to transform and renew everyday objects. Leo started renewing his collection of old motorcycle parts. He quickly discovered that not all transfigurations stayed in their new form, sometimes only lasting minutes before reverting to the previous form. Daphne and Professor Flitwick guided Leo into the more complex sets of magic required to permanently transfigure and renew.

Leo’s confidence with his wand increased. He discovered that there was such a thing as wizards duels. Professor Flitwick trained Leo to duel in the formal sense. Leo never told the professor that he had years of training in the muggle sport of boxing. When he was thirteen his mother wanted Leo to learn ballroom dancing. She told Leo that he needed to learn something civilised. She took him to the local church hall where a ballroom dancing academy had lessons on Monday nights. Leo saw on a notice board that there was boxing training in the old church hall next door. He struck a deal; he would do ballroom dancing on Monday nights if he could do boxing on Wednesday nights. His mother could manage the cost of both if the council youth program helped to pay the fees.

Leo was never able to keep a partner long enough to progress in ballroom dancing competitions. When he was eighteen his boxing coach told Leo why he would never win a boxing competition; Leo never really wanted to hurt anyone. He could defend and avoid being hurt but he didn’t have a knockout punch.

All this footwork came out in duelling practice. Leo could dance out of danger. Even Professor Flitwick had difficulty scoring against Leo. As Leo’s confidence grew, the footwork gave Leo the split seconds needed to aim his point scoring spells. Professor Flitwick was most impressed.

All the reading Leo was doing about historical and recent magical conflicts made him see that the friendliness he received from witches and wizards wouldn’t be given to him by all of them. His short encounter with George Weasley played on his mind. There was a lot of grief out there and some people could make that last for generations. 

Leo was invited to Harry’s home at 12 Grimauld Place for evening meals every second week. There were other guests on most occasions. Leo met the Potter’s connections in magical society, Kingsley Shacklebolt, the Minister for Magic, Holyhead Harpies, Ginny’s team, and Chudley Cannons, of which Harry owned a part, Dumbledores Army and their friends and family, the few remaining members of the Order of the Phoenix, Andromeda Tonks and her grandson Teddy Lupin. At one of these evenings Leo asked Harry about George, his use of Legilimency and his opinion of Daphne Greengrass. Harry didn’t look happy at this piece of news.

“Leo, you should get Daphne’s story about her family, Hogwarts and her life since then. It will be much better coming from her. I know it already and the Ministry wants her and her family to regain the life in society they once had”. 

“You know about Fred being killed in the battle. It looks like George is going to have a long struggle coping with that. Ron isn’t much better. The other Weasleys are trying to deal with it. The Weasleys and another old family, the Malfoys, have what seems to be an old feud. To us outsiders it is something which just won’t go away, it is private and personal between them and doesn’t need a reason to flare up again. How it got started is lost in the ancient history. The Black family and the Greengrass family have been associated with the Malfoys. Sirius and his cousin Andromeda ended hostilities by being cast out of the Black family. The Greengrass family were never allied with the Malfoys. They were and are opposed to what the Malfoys stood for, but they were forced to have business associations with them because of ancient magical contracts. All those contracts have been terminated by the financial and personal ruin that the Greengrass family endured during the war.”

The weight of what Harry said was not making Leo happy. “Leo, the complications still carry on. Sirius’ cousin Andromeda had two sisters, Narcissa and Bellatrix. Narcissa is married to Lucius Malfoy. Their son is Draco Malfoy. Bellatrix was one of Tom Riddle’s greatest supporters. She was the one who killed Sirius. Bellatrix was killed in the Battle of Hogwarts by Molly Weasley. This is typical of wizard families and why we need muggle marriages. Andromeda and Narcissa are your first cousins once removed, Draco Malfoy is your second cousin, and Teddy Lupin is your second cousin once removed.”

Once again, the wizarding world had left Leo stunned. “What happened to the Malfoys. Were they Death Eaters? “

Harry fidgeted; “Yes they were. They surrendered and confessed everything to the aurors. We arrested most of the Death Eaters and their supporters because of the Malfoy’s evidence. Narcissa could have had me killed in the battle but she saved me because I told her that Draco was still alive in the castle. She loves her son. Lucius, Narcissa and Draco were given sentences for their crimes. Narcissa and Draco were given probation. They haven’t been seen much in magical society since then. Draco isn’t allowed to own a wand until his probation ends. It doesn’t seem to be much of a penalty, but the policy has been focused on reconciliation.”


	12. The Greengrass Fortune

Leo kept working on his lessons. He wasn’t in a hurry to stir up any difficulty with Daphne. He had to confess to himself that he was thinking more and more about her. A new tutor arrived at Purbeck Square. He was Justin Finch-Fletchley. A member of Dumbledores Army and hero of the Wizards War. Justin had volunteered to coach Leo through the potions course.

Justin and Leo walked into the library to pick up the first-year potions textbook when Leo saw a door suddenly appear in the side wall of the library. This wall was at the rear of the house and the door should have opened into the house at number 14. Leo carefully opened the door and found a complete potions laboratory. Justin examined the room and pronounced it safe to use. Then he gave a most surprising opinion.

“It looks like this room isn’t in number 14, it is in a come-and-go space inside this house, number 15. The house has created this room here because you need it Leo. There is a room like it at Hogwarts, we called it The Room of Requirement. Everything is here to do all the potions course work that we did at school. The walls and floor are strong, the roof is light. If there are any little incidents the roof will blow right off, and the debris will not shoot out into the rest of the house, how reassuring”. Leo just looked at Justin.

Leo had completed his transfiguration assignments. Daphne was ready to leave when Leo got up the courage to ask about her family history. “Why do you want know about that? Has somebody said something to you?”

Leo’s apprehension deepened; “Yes, I haven’t talked about who has been helping me with my lessons, but it looks like there is some interest in who is doing it.”

Daphne’s pursed her lips. “I have to give you a couple of hours to explain this. Is there anywhere we can go where we won’t be obvious? Not Diagon Alley.”

Leo breathed one relieved breath, “Tomorrow, I have been asked to go to my place in Dorset, the staff want to meet me down there. They aren’t wizards or witches and I’m told they keep their mouths shut about who visits there. If you have the time, I’d like you to come with me. I won’t be staying overnight so we will be back here by 8.”

Daphne stayed silent for a few seconds. “I don’t have an excuse for not going. I suppose that’s enough time to cover everything. OK, I’ll come. What time do we start and what’s the dress code?”

“I want us to leave here by 10. They will have lunch for us. Wear something casual. Is this going to be upsetting for you?”

“It will be gruelling. Especially for you if you go all funny. You might have guessed by now that I don’t like being upset.” Leo realised that he had never seen Daphne angry, he resolved to do what he could to avoid that.

“Why don’t we floo there? That won’t take hours.” Daphne did not look happy.

Leo realised that he planned things like a muggle. He was still a muggle in himself. “They don’t have a floo connection. It is run as a muggle house, rented out for executive retreats and meetings. You could apparate but I don’t apparate yet. I know I’m not brave about this, for the time being, I still like to travel by car or motorcycle.”

Daphne studied Leo; he didn’t feel a legilimens touch. “OK Leo, we will take it slowly. See you tomorrow.”

Daphne arrived early, she was dressed in boat shoes, tailored skirt, and blazer. She looked very smart. “This is a casual day Daphne; you’re making me look sloppy.”

“Leo, this is as casual as I get. How are we getting there?” Leo opened the front door. A long Mercedes-Benz was waiting for them. 

Daphne didn’t take much notice of where they were going. The car crossed the river and then stopped at what looked like an office entrance. “We’ll change to our next transport here.” Leo looked quite pleased with himself.

“Change to what? Where are we?”

Leo headed of into the office entrance. “Don’t fight about this. It’s all arranged. This is the London Heliport.”

The new transport was a helicopter. It had first class seating for six and two pilots. Daphne had never travelled in a car before let alone anything like this.

Daphne was not a great flyer. She could do short trips on a broom and then needed to stop on the ground to regain her equilibrium. “If I don’t like this, I won’t trust you again. I suppose this is one of the perks the family trust gives you.”

Leo was grinning broadly. “It sure is. I’ve only had a short ride in one, it’s one of burdens I have to get used to.”

Daphne had only experienced sweaty palms during her broom riding lessons at Hogwarts. The take-off and first minutes of flight were another ‘sweaty palms’ experience. “How can muggles do this all the time? I don’t like these seat belts. What if we have to get out of this thing?”

Leo tried to be confident. He was not prepared for the cool, in control Daphne to be so nervous. “Just try to relax and enjoy the view. You don’t have to fly it like you would a broom, the pilots are very good. They will take care of everything. If you can’t relax, try to tell me some of your story.”

The noise in the cabin was too much for easy conversation. Leo got them both to use headsets provided for passengers to talk without shouting.

“That’s a bit better. Right! First, my family, as you know my father and mother both come from families who thought they were a cut above the rest. Greengrass is on the ‘Sacred 28’ list. When I was growing up, my parents made sure that I understood that this was rubbish. It was a tall story that only the ‘Sacred 28’ maintained was true. Mum and Dad were saddled with magical contracts which are binding not just for individuals but all succeeding generations. It’s these contracts that forced my parents to buy from a fixed list of suppliers at prices set by the supplier. The only way to break these contracts is to be completely penniless so that many contract payments were missed. Once you were penniless and you died and your successors were penniless as well, then the contract was broken. We all had to play along with common upstarts like the Malfoys and their superior pure-blood twaddle. The Malfoys owned the magical rights to land which produced potions ingredients we needed. The contracts made by great-great-great grandparents meant that we had to associate with the Malfoys, the Crabbes, the Goyles and others like them who were a waste of space.

Dad had to negotiate with other suppliers as well because these old families took no interest in their supply businesses. The quality and quantity always trended down but the amounts we had to pay stayed at whatever they wanted. We were merchants and they were landowners, the old snobbery; and magical contract law supported them. Despite all this Mum and Dad were so good at their business that they made money. Dad started finding young people who needed a silent partner to help them get started. He was good at picking winners. He gave advice and encouraged at every turn. When his proteges worked themselves up to the next level he let them buy him out. He didn’t become a big investor; he only wanted to find new talent and get them into business.

When I started at Hogwarts, I deliberately set out to take the pressure off me. The first step was to take the role of the Slytherin Ice Queen. This was easy for me as it was close to the truth. I couldn’t do it all the time as I would have made too many enemies. I decided to become a split personality. I could hex anyone who crossed me, then in the next breath come out with a lot of fairy floss, air head talk about fashion, holidays in France and the latest romance gossip. It nearly always worked. The Gryffindors fell for it every time and dismissed me as just another Pansy Parkinson gang member. I loathed Parkinson.

Then Tom Riddle came back. We were all in deep trouble. Riddle demanded money from every Death Eater. They had to get it by stealing from whoever couldn’t defend themselves. All the old contract owners put up their prices, they were killing our business. As things got worse, Dad was taking his muggle born and half-blood partners and hiding them in the muggle world. All our businesses were broke. The demands for payment flooded in every day. Mum and Dad sold everything, valuables, furniture, clothes, everything. The house was signed over for one debt in hundreds. 

Then came the battle at Hogwarts. Most people had us on the list of Tom Riddle supporters. A bunch of snatchers came to the house as Mum and Dad were leaving, turned out by the new owners. They demanded that Dad go with them to fight for Riddle. Dad refused. He and Mum were going to Hogwarts to get Astoria and me away. I do not know where, just away. These snatchers drew their wands, told Dad they were going to kill them both. Dad drew his wand and fought them. He got three of them before he was killed. 

Mum escaped, she apparated to Hogsmeade. There were lots of people there just like her, trying to get their children out. I found Astoria; we went out through this secret tunnel to Hogsmeade. Mum found us and apparated us both away. We went to a muggle house where one of dad’s former partners was hiding. We cried and cried for days, weeks. We were cut off. Dads former muggle partners found work in muggle jobs, they stayed away from the wizarding world. They were known Greengrass partners. They weren’t welcome, we weren’t welcome. The new Ministry didn’t know or care about how Dad died, we never found his body.

I started obsessing about finding the scum who murdered my father. We didn’t know who they were, much less where. For two years my mother trained me to be as good at Legilimens and Occlumency as she was. She also arranged for me to practise magical fighting, all the moves and spells. My cousins are particularly good at it; after a year of practice I could beat them all. Then I got an owl from gormless Pansy Parkinson. She was full of news about Goyle, Bletchley, Flint and Millicent Bulstrode being on the run. According to Parkinson they were going to tear ‘The Golden Trio’ up. They we going to get all the money back that the old families had lost and have great adventures doing it. They were the best chance I had to find Dad’s killers. Maybe they were already dead. I had to find out. So, I sent an owl to Bulstrode and she agreed to take me into the ‘gang’.

What a hideous nightmare that was. They didn’t have a clue about anything. They tried to use the Parkinsons to run some scam to damage Harry and Ginny. They had no money, so they stole some. To run their scam, they needed a vault at Gringotts. They couldn’t use their own as they were wanted by the aurors. So, they wanted me to marry one of them to give me another name so they could use my vault. They knew a corrupt Ministry official who would fill in the forms, and I had a new name. I became Daphne Bletchley. For a time, this hid them from the aurors. 

Life on the run was harrowing. Thank Merlin, Bletchley ignored me and mostly stayed away from our various hideouts. There were a few visits to Goyle Hall which were worse than any tent or cave where we normally hid.

Goyle also wanted to get revenge on traitors, anyone who surrendered and talked to the aurors after the battle. He wanted to kill Draco Malfoy. He got me to write a silly letter to him which we sent by owl. Goyle hoped that Malfoy would break cover.

Malfoy didn’t appear. He eventually sent a reply to Astoria. She was still at Hogwarts. Malfoy just warned me off, no more silly letters, please.

Astoria graduated weeks after that. She hunted Malfoy down, not to kill him, but to find out what he was doing hiding in the muggle world. Astoria took it on herself to help Draco start a new life. They went to Diagon Alley so that Draco could start his own vault at Gringotts. Draco was not allowed to use magic at all so Astoria apparated to Diagon Alley taking Draco with her.

In Diagon Alley, Draco was arrested on sight by Ron Weasley and questioned about accusations against Draco which were known to be inaccurate. This was done to keep Draco out of the way while a message was given to Astoria. She was told that if she could get me to surrender and tell everything I knew to the aurors, then I would get immunity and be home free.

Draco went back into hiding in the Muggle world. Astoria applied for her own vault at Gringotts which she could allow Draco to use.

I told the aurors everything I knew about the witless gang. I was with them for seven months. I had found out enough about them to catch them. Eventually Harry was able to use that to arrest them. I went back to live with Mum, still in that muggle house. Mum pushed me to apply for the marriage to be anulled. The annulment was quickly granted by the Ministry of Magic.

Harry looked at the story I wrote out for the aurors. He told me that I should start writing to earn some galleons. I wrote essays on corrupt officials, the Goyle gang, and Tom Riddle supporters who were still free to spread misery. Harry took them to the editor at The Daily Prophet and they were printed under my ‘nom-de-plume’. That was two years ago; I still write that column, three days a week and I now write a fashion column two days a week under my not-so-serious ‘nom-de-plume’.”


	13. Swanfleet Hall

The helicopter landed on a broad lawn. The landing was so smooth that the passengers didn’t notice it until the noise died away. Leo and Daphne unbuckled and stepped out into bright sunshine. To the east the green lawn finished in a line against the blue sea. To the north were wind-blown trees. To the west was a view out over calm waterways bordered by tall reeds. To the south was the house. 

It had as many extensions stuck on as The Burrow, but the impression was entirely different. The original structure was a Norman castle built in 1082 by the Purbeck ancestors who had arrived with William The Conqueror. It was partly demolished, then a Tudor house was added onto the stone walls. The house was rebuilt in Elizabethan times and a new front was started in 1805. Then an Art Nouveau greenhouse was built on to one side. On the other side, modern style glass walls and roof were built over an indoor swimming pool, very ‘Mies van der Rohe’.

Leo and Daphne followed a wide gravel path around to the Georgian front which faced the main drive. As they approached the front portico two people in dark trousers and green jackets with a crest on the pocket hurried out to greet them. They were the manager and her assistant. 

Leo felt, rather than heard Daphne step back. Leo tried to feel these greeters, they were blank. He didn’t see anything in them. They both seemed to be happy and were smiling broadly. 

Daphne called out; “Leo! Go on in, I have a stone in my shoe.”

Leo felt an urgent push from Daphne. He felt for his wand in its concealed holster. Then he turned his head just enough to see Daphne draw her wand and hold it tightly against her leg. 

The two staff walked ahead apparently unconcerned. Two more uniformed staff were waiting in the reception hall. They were also smiling but their response to a touch was blank.

The manager turned to Leo, “Lord Purbeck, a government official arrived here this morning. He is waiting to speak to you personally about an important matter.”

A man dressed in a dark cloak walked in from a side room. As he approached Leo, he sensed a level of hostility that would come from a champion boxer determined to knock him down. The stranger walked up to Leo, smiled, and started to draw a wand.

Only Leo saw what happened next. It was over in an instant.

The stranger’s head snapped back. There was the sound of something breaking. The stranger fell over backwards and crashed full length on the floor. 

At the same instant Daphne called, “Finite! Finite! Finite! Finite!” 

Leo finished drawing his wand and called, “Expelliarmus!”

The stranger’s wand flew out of his hand and Leo caught it.

The four uniformed staff fell to their knees and rolled onto the floor.

Leo called, “Incarcerous Maxima! Ropes shot out of the end of his wand and tied the ‘official’ from head to foot and gagged him.

Leo and Daphne held their wands out and scanned the hall. Leo felt the building was clear. “I don’t sense anyone else, do you?”

Daphne spoke in a clear voice, “The building is clear, your security team are still outside. They are running in.”

Then came many apparation ‘crack’ sounds from outside. Then, there were the same number of disapparation sounds.

Leo looked out the open front door. “What was that?”

Daphne stared at a window. “I saw someone disapparate just outside that window, then they apparated again instantly.”

The tall security team leader arrived at the main door. His magically amplified voice boomed out, “What is the situation?”

Daphne looked at the four staff. One of them shakily asked, “What happened? I blacked out.”

The ‘official’ was awake and glaring but couldn’t move. Leo kept his wand on him.

Daphne walked to the doorway. “I’m Daphne Greengrass. Please verify my identity.” 

The team leader pointed his wand at Daphne, “State your name.”

Daphne replied, “Daphne Greengrass.”

The wand sent out red light which enclosed Daphne and disappeared.

“Your identity is confirmed. What happened?”

Daphne spoke with a slightly shaky voice, “As we met the house staff both Leo and I sensed that they had been Imperioused. We entered the hall and an intruder came in from the side room. I didn’t see what happened. Leo disarmed him and then bound him. I lifted the Imperious Curses from the staff. We think the house is now safe. We heard many apparations and disapparations. I saw one disapparate and apparate instantly at that window. I don’t know what happened.”

The team leader turned and spoke quietly. “Scan the grounds and buildings. Report every issue.” The security team heard him and moved off to search.

He then turned to Daphne, “Let’s see inside.”

He verified the identity of each staff member. The intruder growled at him. The team leader spoke to both Daphne and Leo, “The aurors are on their way. This man is supposed to be a Ministry official. He shouldn’t be here. I would like to hear what you did Mister Blake, but the aurors should hear that first.”

There were three distant apparation sounds and three aurors could be seen walking towards the portico. One of them was Harry Potter.

Harry listened to the team leaders report. He then asked Leo, “What happened Leo?”

Leo looked uncomfortable. “I had an outbreak of my old life. Let me explain. For years when I was younger, I trained as a boxer. My first boxing coach was a university-trained social worker, psychologist, and counsellor. He worked for many years around South London. When he took early retirement, he distilled all that training and experience into a simple mantra for his junior boxers if there was trouble in the street; ‘Don’t hesitate; one straight punch will make them step back before they can use their knife; then run.’”

“Well, today I just substituted wand for knife. He telegraphed his intention when he started to draw his wand. He got so close to me he couldn’t have reacted to anything I did. I gave him the best left upper cut I could, and he took it right on the snout. That gave me time to get my wand up and I disarmed him, then Incarceroused him.”

Harry looked around at the assembled security experts and Daphne. “You got away with it because he didn’t expect you to resist. You have only had three months of wand practice. He thought he had surprised you, but you turned it around. The aurors will have to debate this. Maybe we should be thinking about adding to our pack of surprises for the unwary.”

One of the investigators came in, “Harry, this isn’t a muggle house. It now has enough wards and charms active on it to be another Hogwarts. We checked this place weeks ago, there was nothing. Now, I’m guessing here; when Lord Purbeck turned up all the ancient enchantments came to life. They are powerful ones. The disapparations and apparations; all those wizards trying to come here were instantly apparated down into their own private cells in the dungeons. They are still there; making a few complaints about rats and so on but they aren’t going anywhere. They are the Bulgarian kidnap and ransom gang. I’m making another guess, but I think the house will do that to any unfriendly disapparations.”

Harry looked at the tied-up Ministry official. “What about him?”

“Yes, he arrived here before Lord Purbeck, so the house was still asleep.”

Daphne stepped up beside Leo. “You have got a fabulous house here, Leo. I’m jealous.”


	14. Mister Proud

Louisa was lost in thought. It felt like it was the first time in her life that she could plan to do anything other than work and look after someone else. For a long time, the someone else was Leo. Now, Leo was looking after her. At least, he was paying all these people to look after her. Roland and Robert ran the house. She didn’t get to see a single bill. It was the third week since she was whisked away from the cockroach palace, and the tiny flat in Surbiton, in other words her entire old life. She realised that she needed some of the counselling on coping with life that she used to give out, to Leo, to junior staff at her various workplaces, to many random people she met. 

The Rolls-Royce cruised to the south west from Pimlico, back towards Surbiton. Louisa was on her way to meet some old friends. The old church, St Peters, had been an island of calm in the constant stream of dramas in her life. What she wanted now was to keep the last link to her old life, the people who wanted to see her and talk to her about everyday things. They didn’t know anything about her new home and life. The week before Leo had arranged for a few people to come to dinner and talk about how to stay connected. There was no escaping the new life with wizards and witches. However, Louisa was not in that connection. She knew about the need for secrecy, also she knew the parts of her life that she could tell her old friends. The best discussions were with Hermione’s parents, the dentists who had to cope with their daughter taking a completely different direction in life from their own.

The leading car stopped outside St Peters. Two fit looking people got out, moved to vantage points, and watched the street. The Rolls-Royce arrived, a young woman alighted from the front passenger seat and opened the door for Louisa. The trailing car stopped, and two more people emerged. Louisa smiled and waved to friends she knew and then carried out the instructions she had been given, she had to go straight to the door and enter, no chatting outside.

The three cars slowly moved off. Louisa was able to tell her friends about a small part of her new life. It was Leo’s fault. He inherited something from his missing father, titles, and a vast fortune. It was never a secret. He just didn’t tell anyone. 

The news reached an interested listener. Chief Inspector Graham Proud had been asking Louisa out for months. Her answer was always a variation on, “I’d like to Graham, but I have to work.”

Graham had been on his own for years. His life was dull, always dull. He had to admit it. He was dull. He liked dull. He also liked Louisa. The security team, the Rolls-Royce and Louisa’s news rang many different alarm bells in Graham’s thoughts. Whoever has arranged this must be expecting kidnap attempts for ransom. Graham stayed at the door of the church as the people moved in. He scanned the street; the security team was now out of sight. One tall young woman had entered with Louisa and sat at the back. Graham made a call to his office. He would have answers to his questions by the end of the service.

After the service Louisa stayed in the lobby and talked as long as her friends wanted to. This was different. Louisa had always had to leave to get ready for lunch at the restaurant. Louisa smiled at Graham and beckoned him over. “Graham, would you like to come to my place for lunch today?”

“Oh! Yes, certainly, that would be great.”

Louisa looked at her tall companion, who then nodded and stepped out of the main door. After waiting three minutes, the bodyguard nodded to Louisa and walked to the footpath. The Rolls-Royce pulled up. The rear door was opened for Louisa and Graham saw a quick direction from the bodyguard to take the far side. As the car moved off Louisa looked at Graham, “Thanks for coming Graham. I wanted to catch up with you for a while. I hope you don’t have anything else to do today.”

Before Graham could answer his phone rang. He listened to the report he had asked for and then responded. “Thank-you sergeant, just leave it with me, goodbye.”

Louisa looked at him, “Working on Sunday, that’s not like you, Graham.”

Graham gave a nervous laugh. “Oh! It was nothing. How is your new job? It sounds like a lot more fun than your old one.”

As the cars entered Purbeck Square Graham observed several bunches of paparazzi milling around. As he feared, the cars had to pass close to at least one of them. There were the usual shouts from the photographers. Louisa was well rehearsed and sat calmly facing the front. The car stopped at number 16 but there was no rush to a get a close-up. 

Security closed in and Louisa and Graham were able to walk calmly to the front door which opened as they approached. The cars departed with the security team, but the paparazzi did not close in on the house. 

Graham stepped into the entrance hall, the door was quickly shut, and relieved breaths were let out. Graham then did a classic double take. “Roland White!”

Roland’s face went from straight to surprised red; “Mister Proud! How are you sir.”

Graham turned to Louisa, “Roland was one of my MPs in the army, a long time ago, a very long time ago. You left to work for British Airways, didn’t you?”

“Yes sir, I did a long spell with them and now I’m working for Her Ladyship, and very happy to be here sir.”

Louisa put her hand on Grahams arm, “That’s enough Graham, you can catch up with Roland later. Right now, Roland, I would love a cup tea in the small sitting room, thank-you.”

Louisa took Graham into a sitting room at the end of the hall. The room opened into a green house filled with lush foliage plants selected to block out the not so attractive rear view.

“This is one of my favourite rooms. I do nothing here but read, and meditate, and celebrate tea-time.”

Graham enjoyed his conversation with Louisa, morning tea merged into lunch with a series of picnic treats supplied by Roland. “Louisa, it’s obvious why there are paparazzi outside, an ordinary working family picked up and made rich overnight. That’s what sells. What I am curious about is what is keeping them away from the front door?”

Louisa paused, thought for a second; “I don’t know for sure. I asked Robert yesterday when they first showed up. He said that the security team had been expecting them much earlier than this. He intimated that there was something about these houses, the security systems, that made people want to stay away if they hung around outside for too long.”

Graham hesitated, “Hmmm! People have talked about such things. There have been experiments with things like high and low frequency sound, but nothing useful has come of it. If this is right, you will be repelling the people you want be there, and neighbours. I’ll ask Roland about it.”

The afternoon was spent chatting and touring the house. Graham tried to keep track of the room layouts on each floor. He suspected that some rooms extended into next door. Louisa said she didn’t notice such things and accused him of being a policeman 24 by 7.

Roland and Robert had the evening off. Louisa had a rare opportunity to work in the kitchen and prepare a supper for them both. “I would like to do this again Graham. On a regular basis if you like.”

Graham quickly agreed. “Louisa, I must ask, this is such a change, I know everything has changed but frankly, you’ve been keeping me at arm’s length until now.”

“Graham, all my adult life I’ve had to work all hours to survive. For a long time, it was just that, surviving. Now, I’m adjusting to better times. I need someone’s help to keep up with all the new things and hang on to the best of my old life. You are here for me right now, and I have always liked you. Let’s work with this and see where it leads.”

Graham was on duty in the morning, he had to leave. A time was arranged for him to look at how Roland and Robert managed the security systems. A black cab arrived to take Graham home. The paparazzi had given up and gone hours before. Graham took time on the return trip to mull over the sudden change in Louisa’s and his life. Then he noticed that there was no meter in the cab. “Driver, this isn’t a proper cab.”

The driver smiled back at Graham. “No sir, this is one of the cars from the Pimlico Security team.”

Next morning, Graham opened an official file left on his desk by the sergeant on the previous day. He read the short paragraphs again to make sure he was right. All the car registrations he noted on Sunday belonged to Pimlico Security. It was a private security company that held clearances to work at the highest levels, guarding Prime Ministers, and foreign heads of state when the government’s own security needed reinforcement. How interesting, and Rowland wouldn’t have forgotten all his MP training. 

The week dragged by. Graham called Louisa each day, which is something he hadn’t done since he was a kid. He was pathetically smitten. Saturday came at last; Graham pulled rank and got his shifts changed to get Saturday afternoon and Sunday free. He couldn’t do that all the time. Saturday afternoon was an old-time rock and roll concert with an original band. Louisa loved it. The evening at 16 Purbeck Square was calm and friendly. Robert agreed to show Graham the office after supper. The office on the far side of the first reception room was tiny. There was one desk with a computer and six screens showing CCTV of the Purbeck Square street front and the mews and the ground floor hallway.

Robert showed how the system recognised people already known. Strangers in the square were highlighted and could be marked as friend or foe or neutrals. Foes received a repelling push from the system which was beamed at only them. If they persisted and came to the door, a warning was sent to the staff mirror-phones and logged in the Pimlico Security headquarters. 

“Robert, I know what is commercially available for security systems. This is off the scale. It is far above what is done in the most secure installations. I’m guessing that you can’t tell me anything. This is most secret isn’t it.”

Robert was silent for a moment, “I’ve been contacted by the Pimlico Security management. They know that you’ve already noticed odd things about these houses and how they work. It has been decided to show you enough to convince you that this is confidential at the highest level. You can’t mention this to anyone, officially or unofficially. I can’t tell you how this works because I don’t know. I just press the buttons.”

“Robert, I know Roland was an MP in ancient times, what about you?”

‘Royal Navy Police.”


	15. Greengrass Inc

When Leo was growing up in Louisa’s home, he absorbed her attitudes towards life without thinking too much about them. Louisa spoke out against injustice and the daily parade of unfair penalties that Louisa and Leo had to struggle against. He grew up expecting that somehow every loss could be restored, and every injustice overcome.

Daphne’s story revealed that in the wizarding world a much older set of values held sway. The wizarding government wasn’t a welfare state. Poverty was a problem for the poor. If you were hit by hard times, you had to find your own way out. You could get help from family and friends, but if your family cast you out and friends were not there then hard times could stay forever. There was no escape from debt, you and your children had to pay debts off, with interest, for however many generations it took.

Leo had a mission. Daphne’s story of her family’s decline left him with questions of his own. Harry obviously trusted Daphne. Louisa always told Leo to get both sides of an argument before getting involved. Leo wrote a letter to Roger Kenworthy. He sent it by his owl who had been waiting for a job in her palatial owlery at the rear of his suite for many days. The first response came within hours. Roger Kenworthy knew about the Greengrass family business. They were one of the few old wizard families who could be trusted. The Greengrass family business was genuinely broke. Olivia Greengrass was doing what she could but with no money, no credit and a mountain of debt, there was no progress. 

Leo wrote back asking if there was a way that he could help Olivia Greengrass without revealing who he was. Kenworthy responded quickly. Leo could buy the company’s debt. Then he could set the interest rate as low as he liked making it possible for the debt to be repaid. Kenworthy could set up a company to do this anonymously. Then he could offer to buy half of Greengrass Potions as a silent partner. This would give Olivia Greengrass enough money to start trading again and earn some proper income. If all went well Olivia Greengrass could eventually pay off the debt and then buy Leo out giving her the family business back and her self-respect. Leo asked Kenworthy to set the rescue plan in motion. Hours later, Leo received a schedule of costs and a payment approval form. The money Leo had to pay was about one tenth of the galleons that his Gringotts account earned in a month. 

Daphne arrived for the usual training session on the next afternoon. She was never very talkative but this time she was silent. 

“What’s up, Daphne. You could be accused of being surly today.”

Daphne studied Leo’s face, “Leo, have you been doing good deeds behind my back? I can’t stand people who just give out help without being asked. I’m always expecting some kind of moral obligation to come out of it.”

Leo wasn’t ready for this, “Oh! well, yes, I’ve been talking to some people about your mother’s business.”

“Not just talking. I knew it was you as soon as mum told me. She doesn’t know about your lessons and I didn’t need Legilimens to add up one and one. She’ll find out eventually. She’s very good at getting the facts behind any business deal.”

“Is this a problem? You don’t owe me anything. In fact, I owe you a lot. If you didn’t get me trained up, I would have been in trouble at Swanfleet. You saved me there, don’t deny it.”

Daphne glared at Leo, then softened, “Ok Leo, that might have something in it. The fact is though, that was a lot of money, more than I could earn in lifetime worked for The Daily Prophet.”

Leo smiled, “They must pay you peanuts. That was a fraction of what my Gringotts account earns me each month.”

Daphne showed her business face, “We’re here to improve your Occlumency, get to work!”


	16. Leo`s Mother

Daphne was thinking about how to break it to Leo. The task Harry had given her was finished. Leo was stronger at Occlumency than most wizards. His Legilimency was progressing quickly, there was no way to separate the two.

The Transfiguration lessons were going well, Leo continued to soak up everything magical at a rapid rate. Daphne wanted to ask Harry if someone else could carry on the lessons. She needed some time to investigate a new story for her column. At least, that was the excuse she was giving out for an extended absence. Daphne had submitted four weeks advance copy for her columns to her editor at The Daily Prophet. 

Louisa entered 15 Purbeck Square by the not-so-secret side door. She knew that Leo had been invited to a family event. Leo had not given the right answer. She knew he was in his library waiting for an appointment. As she approached the main stairway a young woman came in from the entrance hall. 

“Oh, you must be Leo’s next appointment. I’m Louisa, Leo’s mother. Sorry about butting in, but I need a few minutes with Leo to sort something out.”

“That’s quite OK. I’m not in a hurry today. Let me introduce myself. I’m Daphne Greengrass. Leo has told me quite a lot about you. I’m pleased to meet you.”

Louisa studied Daphne, “Leo hasn’t said anything about you, I suppose I have to get used to that. He is an important man now in the wizarding world and in his old life. Tell me to mind my own business if you like, but can you tell me what your connection is to Leo?”

“I have been tutoring Leo in magic, some of the basic skills he should have got from when he was eleven. You know that if his gifts weren’t supressed by on old family curse, he would have had a place at Hogwarts. He and I would have started there at the same time.”

Louisa shrugged, “Yes, Leo told me about that. I’ve met Harry Potter and some other magical people; they’ve all been kind to me. But I can’t help feeling caught between the muggle and magical worlds. It’s not always a comfortable place to be.”

Louisa entered the library and shouted at Leo, “What do you mean turning down that invitation. This is your cousins wedding, Leo. I want to keep the peace with some of my family even if you don’t. Explain yourself.”

“Mum! My cousins, from that family, were snobbish bullies. When I was a kid, they tried to beat me up. The girls were worse than the boys. I don’t have any happy memories of them. I don’t want to go.”

Louisa glared at Leo, “If you don’t show up, my brother’s wife will gossip and spread silly stories about you. Please do this for me and my brother. His existence is unpleasant enough without any more problems, it won’t hurt you.”

Daphne waited at the door, an interested spectator.

“I don’t have anyone to take. The invitation said, ‘and guest’. 

‘Don’t use that excuse. Call them up right now and tell them you are free to come. Your motorcycle ride or whatever you’re doing will have to wait.”

Louisa turned and marched out. As she passed Daphne whispered, “Just like my family.”

Leo called out, “No whispering you two! Daphne, please come in.”

Once Louisa was safely away Leo mumbled. “She’s given me an idea. I’ll turn up on my motorcycle in full leathers.”

“It’s your funeral Leo. If it were me, I would do it for my mother. But that’s me. Now to business, I have finished the job Harry gave me, which was to get your Occlumency to the stage where you can be let out on your own. I’ve asked Harry to find someone else to help you with Transfiguration. I have another job to do for the next four weeks, at least. Research for a new article, it might turn into a book if I turn up the right answers. The answer to your next question is, no I can’t tell you what it is, and I’m working on my own.”

The wedding was a day to forget. Pimlico Security would not let Leo go without a full squad. At least there was no Rolls-Royce or Bentley. The team selected were the tallest, most obvious looking tough guys Leo had seen. His cousins kept sneaking nervous looks at him and stayed away. His uncle chatted with him until he was moved on by his aunt. The photographer was a pest. At last Louisa gave him the sign that he could leave.

The gossip pages on the next day contained the first ever photographs of the new Viscount Pimlico at a wedding reception. Breathless accounts of how he was one of the richest men in the country were sandwiched in between snatches of sickening stories about what a fine young gentleman he was before he was discovered. 

That was the end of his anonymity. Louisa joined Leo for breakfast at the kitchen table in 15 Purbeck Square. “I’m sorry about the photographs Leo, I didn’t know my sister-in-law would be such a traitor. I asked her not to talk about you. After you left, she was talking to that photographer a lot.”

Leo shrugged, “It was only a matter of time before it came out. Don’t worry about it. I never got to talk to your guest. Who is he?”

“Ah! Now I have to let my secret out. His name is Graham Proud. We have been seeing each other for a few weeks, just about since we moved in here. He is a policeman, a chief inspector, uniform, you know, speeding tickets, traffic accidents, public order.”

“Is he kind, polite and considerate? You couldn’t stand it if he worked every weekend.”

“Leo, he is all of those things. He is, most importantly, not overcome by ambition for promotion. I get to see him at least once a week. He has been asking me out for months.”

“Mum, I want you to be happy living here. You know there has already been an attempt by criminals to kidnap me for ransom. Does Mister Proud know about that attempt?”

“Yes, he spotted all the security around me on the first day. He told me that it was obvious the people looking after us now were concerned about kidnapping. He also told me that he thought Roland and Robert were selected for more than their ability to serve tea properly. He thinks that they are both armed all the time, but he can’t see how it’s done. He is also intrigued by the house and all the things it can do. He says that it is way above conventional security systems.”

It was Leo’s turn to be concerned; “I’ll tell Harry about that. If Mister Proud is to become a permanent fixture around here, then he will have to have better answers to his questions. Do you think he will ask you to marry him?”

“Oh Leo, he would have asked me a year ago if I had stayed still long enough.”

“Mum, if you like him, then let him catch you. It would remove one concern of mine.” 

“What’s that?”

“That you would feel lonely and isolated here. I would much rather you had someone to share your life with other than me. You know, there are big houses in Ireland, Scotland, and France that I haven’t seen yet. How do you feel about taking Mister Proud with you to try out the villa on the Côte d’Azur?


	17. Daphne`s Mother

Owls never bring good news these days. The tawny owl had a roll of parchment tied with red tape. It wasn’t going to go away. Olivia calmed herself and opened the roll. There were several sheets of parchment in the roll. It was from the most expensive solicitors in London. The first page stunned Olivia for a full five minutes. All the Greengrass debts, personal and commercial had been bought by an investment company. No hints about who it was behind it. The next parchment was a new schedule of debt repayments. If the Greengrass businesses had any income the debt repayments would be easy. That was a big ‘if’, right now the business income was zero. The third parchment was an offer. A potential silent partner wished to buy half of Greengrass Potions, the biggest business when the Greengrass family was worth something. The offer was enough cash to run the company for a year. This was a big deal because the real value of Greengrass Potions was zero. Her new partner was risking all this money just to get her working for him or her. 

The offer acceptance was sent off within the hour. The solicitors, Kenworthy, Le Blanc and Gomes, were trusted by all wizards and witches and the muggles they did business with. They were unusual in the magical world for having muggle business clients. Olivia asked the solicitors to arrange a meeting with her new silent partner. They told Olivia that her silent partner wished to remain silent for the time being.

Identities don’t stay secret for long in the wizarding world. Olivia sent her owl to Daphne. Astoria would be home from the shop in a few hours. Between them they should be able to track down well off wizards looking for risky investments.

The detective team had an answer within a day. Daphne knew who it was. It was Harry Potter’s brother, by adoption, Leo Blake, The Viscount Pimlico, and The Baron Purbeck. She had been introduced by Harry Potter in a chance meeting. 

“Mum, he is almost harmless. He is doing this because I told him about Dad, the snatchers and how everything had been taken from us.”

Astoria had the muggle news from the internet, Leo was reclusive and vastly wealthy. There were photographs of him at a family wedding with some stories about his working-class life before being discovered. He was acknowledged by the muggle authorities as the owner of the titles and the family trust. 

“Daphne, what connection do you have with his lordship now?”

“He doesn’t answer to any of that titled stuff. If you persist with it, you can get him annoyed. Harry asked me to tutor Leo in Occlumency. He had no defence at all when I met him.”

“What does Leo think about Greengrass Potions? Will he want to get involved?”

“The last thing he wants to do is to get involved. He wants you to run the business, hire back your old employees, and do whatever it takes to start earning. He wants the debt paid off and he will sell you his share of the company for what he paid for it. It isn’t charity. The solicitors have got an application in to the Ministry’s reconstruction fund. If it is The Viscount Pimlico signing the forms, it will be paid. All that has to happen is to get Greengrass Potions working again.”

Olivia shook her head slowly. “I’m not used to hearing things like this. What are you doing with him now?”

“I’m not doing anything with him now. I’ve asked Harry Potter to get him someone else to help with his tutoring. The fact is that Astoria has found some information on the killers from her searches on the internet. I’ve arranged for four weeks away from The Daily Prophet to check it out.”

“Daphne, please take care of yourself and take care of Mister Leo Blake. I need you both. You are not to take any risks while you are doing this investigation. I know you can take care of yourself, I trained you after all. Another little thing for me to take care of is Draco Malfoy.”

“What about him?”

“Well, all those letters and visits from Astoria have finally started something. He has agreed to visit here.”

Daphne did not look impressed. “If he doesn’t behave himself with Astoria, the Slytherin Ice Queen will make a comeback.”


	18. Daphne`s Investigation

The airliner hung in the air with little sensation of movement. The flight was, in fact, dull and without incident. The processes of having her airline ticket checked and processed, having her bag searched, and showing her passport and visa were completely foreign to Daphne. The muggle staff did not seem to mind explaining every step. They weren’t rude and officious; her fellow travellers also didn’t show impatience with her when she didn’t know the simplest thing about air travel. 

The only time she had any sense of stress was when the airliner was rolling along the wide roadways. The sound of the engines started to rise. The speed increased. The airliner made a turn onto a wider roadway. The engines roared, the seat pushed her in the back, hard. Her palms were suddenly sweaty. The pressure on her back continued. Then the airliner leaped into the air, the climb was steep. There were motor sounds from underneath the floor. Then there were thumps from below as the climb continued. Daphne could feel the tension flowing from the other passengers. The airliner started to level off. The engine noise softened, replaced by the sound of air rushing past the windows. Then everyone calmed down. The sweaty palms stopped. Much to Daphne’s shock, a screen came to life in the back of the seat in front of her and a muggle movie started, and the cabin crew started serving drinks and food.

The only time Daphne felt what must have been the pilot flying the airliner, was in the last seconds before landing in Chicago. The airliner moved up and down; left and right and then bumped down onto the ground. The engines roared again as the airliner slowed down, then subsided. The process of entering the United States was slower and more complex than leaving Britain. Daphne was careful to state that her only purpose in coming to the USA was for a holiday. 

A young couple, two of her father’s former partners who had fled Britain during the Wizarding War, met her at the airport and took her to an older house in the suburbs. She had asked them to keep her visit confidential. She trusted her hosts and gave them all the details of what she planned to do. 

Astoria regularly searched for the family name in the hope of finding something. She had found an item in an internet search which gave Daphne the only information she had about her father’s killers. A man had been arrested in Chicago for committing a series of petty crimes. In an answer to a question in court he had claimed to be the loyal servant of the Dark Lord, and that he had executed the blood traitor Greengrass. The muggle judge detained him for psychiatric assessment. It wasn’t clear how this came to be published on the internet. 

Daphne lined up with the public who were allowed to observe court cases. She found the judge who had dealt with the prisoner who had claimed to have served the Dark Lord. All she had to do was focus on his thoughts and in a second, Legilimens gave her the name and location of the killer. He had been returned to another state which had another criminal charge to make against him. Daphne had to travel on to California.


	19. Daphne in California

Muggle travel was becoming easier for Daphne. A long trip like this would have been awkward and fully visible to the magical authorities in each country, so airliners and public transport became a necessity. It took a week to find the right judge in San Francisco. The prisoner had been sent to a psychiatric hospital. He would stay there as long as he claimed to be able to kill by magic. There was strong evidence that he had committed murder in California. A food store owner had refused to give him alcohol and died of injuries inflicted by the criminal. 

The obvious question Daphne puzzled over was why he didn’t use his wand to avoid capture. The most likely answer was that his wand had been damaged by a spell back-firing. The hospital was located near a small country town. Travelling there was easy, Daphne stayed in a B & B and spent days waiting in public places in the town. The hospital staff lived in the town, they shopped in the supermarket, and gathered for drinks in the few bars. It didn’t take long before Daphne was able to filter out the killer’s name.

The killer still wasn’t confirmed as her father’s murderer other than by his own claim, which wasn’t enough evidence. The search continued until Daphne made a vital discovery. A senior staff member walked into a bar as Daphne was leaving. She felt a Legilimens push from him. He was a wizard. She knew who he was, he was still wearing a name tag with his position printed on it. He was a Senior Consultant Psychiatrist. What was going on here?

Daphne quietened her thoughts and retreated to her B & B room. How was she to proceed? What was a wizard strong enough to use Legilimency doing here? 

Her B & B host, Mrs Brand, called to Daphne as she came in; “Daphne! You have a visitor; she is waiting in the sitting room.”

Visitor! Daphne didn’t know anyone in California. What is going on?

Her visitor was a woman, thirty something, well dressed and friendly. Her response to a gentle Legilimency touch was a firm block. She was definitely a witch. 

“Daphne Greengrass, my name is Jane Goodman. Please don’t be alarmed by this, I am from MACUSA. I have a few questions for you, and I would appreciate it if you could help me with your answers.”

Daphne didn’t respond.

“Well Daphne, MACUSA is running an investigation into activities inside the hospital that you seem to be interested in. I am approaching you because MACUSA contacted the Ministry in London to check you out when you first arrived in town. They are very supportive of you. If you could confirm a few things for me it be helpful.”

Continued silence was not an option; “OK”.

“Good, first, you are a journalist who writes a column for The Daily Prophet.”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“Good, at the present, you are taking a break to carry out your own investigation. Is that right?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“Can you tell me any details of what you are investigating? I can’t keep anything you say private if it involves MACUSA.”

“It isn’t a secret; I am looking for a gang of criminals from Britain who murdered my father during the Wizards War. I am following up a certain inmate of the hospital who doesn’t seem to be able to keep his mouth shut about being a wizard and claims to have executed my father. His name is Magnus Morton.”

“We know about him, Daphne; it seems that he is a wizard. MACUSA arrested him and confiscated his wand. Another outlaw attacked the arresting auror and freed Morton. We were able to stop him getting his wand. Eventually we arrested the second outlaw. His name is Archer; he is a California resident. He has never been to Britain.”

The auror waited for Daphne to respond.

“It looks like Morton moved to Chicago and tried to live as a muggle criminal. The muggle police arrested him; and sent him back here. It looks like he doesn’t apparate very well so he couldn’t get away, some wizards can’t apparate at all if they aren’t carrying a wand. They normally send ordinary criminals like him back into the criminal system. We don’t know why he is still being kept here.”

The MACUSA auror obviously wanted Daphne to fill in the gaps. “There is someone else I have seen who is curious. He is Dr Antonio Fernandez; he is, I think, a Senior Consultant Psychiatrist. He is also a wizard.”

“You’re certain about that?”

“Yes, I sensed him using Legilimency when he came into the bar on Main Street. As for his name and position, it was on his name tag. He was still wearing it when he went into the bar.”

Jane turned to leave; “Thank-you very much Daphne. Please stay here at least until tomorrow. Please don’t risk meeting anyone else from the hospital until we know more about the situation there.”

“Just a minute, you said that MACUSA has Morton’s wand. Have you done a Priori Incantato on it for spells cast?”

Jane turned and looked at Daphne.

“Probably only for the last dozen.”

“Can you get a record of spells cast around the time of The Battle of Hogwarts?”

“I’ll ask for it to be done. I’ll be back tomorrow; stay here.”

Sunrise heralded a beautiful day. The California countryside was different from anything Daphne had seen before. Her family home was hidden in a forest, the colours were fresh green in spring, forest green in summer, orange to red in autumn, and brown and grey in winter. Central California was yellow dry grass with patches of green conifers. The days were clear, with blue skies and no rain. The blue skies helped Daphne sense that she was finally getting somewhere. 

Jane arrived at the B & B at eleven. She was accompanied by a tall, distinguished man in a neat suit. “Daphne, this is Auror Patterson, he has some news for you.”

“Thank-you Jane; the MACUSA investigation department has examined Morton’s wand. They have been able to extract the details of all spells cast with wand for a week before and after the battle. The murder that you are investigating is there. Morton cast an Avada Kedavra curse which killed Julius Greengrass on the night of the Battle of Hogwarts. There are many other killings as well. It seems that following the battle, Morton went on a killing and stealing campaign. It looks like he covered his tracks by murdering all his fellow gang members and took anything of value from them, even if it was only a few dollars. Then he escaped to the USA where he continued thieving and occasionally killing.”

Jane Goodman took over; “Daphne, I’m sorry for your loss. I hope that we will be able to help you get some closure for your father.”

Daphne felt lightheaded, she didn’t trust herself to say something sensible. “What do you intend to do about him?”

“MACUSA doesn’t have the same sort of relationship with the muggle authorities that occurs in other countries. Getting inmates out of psychiatric hospitals creates more attention than we want. We still don’t know who this wizard doctor is. He is certainly not who he is claiming to be. The real Dr Antonio Fernandez died two years ago, cause of death, a killing curse.”

The quest was over. Daphne always intended to identify the killers and get them sent to Azkaban. In Daphne’s thoughts, life in prison was always a worse fate than a revengeful, quick death. “Jane, can you get all these records about Morton sent to the Ministry in London? Send them personally to Harry Potter. The Ministry will be able to get the British police to have him extradited to the UK. I have finished what I came to do. If you don’t need me here anymore, I will fly back to London.”

The next day started perfectly, as had all the others. Daphne packed and prepared to catch the bus to San Francisco. She thanked Mrs Brand and opened the front door. As she walked to the street, she sensed a heavy Legilimency push. She drew her wand and held it under her coat. A car stopped in front of her and the door opened. Magnus Morton stepped out. Dr Fernandez was at the wheel.

“Don’t do anything silly. Get in the back.”

Daphne didn’t hesitate. “Stupefy!”

Morton collapsed. The car door window burst out in flying shards. Fernandez had cast a stunning spell at Daphne. Her coat was hex proof. The coat deflected the spell which destroyed the front fence.

Daphne dropped to the ground and cast her next spells at the car; “Confringo! Stupefy!”

The car had been torn apart by the blasting spell leaving Fernandez stunned but still holding his wand. Daphne’s stunning spell left him restrained. Help was needed as soon as possible. The Patronus to Jane Goodman was short and urgent. “Fernandez and Morton are at the B & B. They are stupefied. Bring an Obliviator.”

The disapparation sounds echoed around the neighbourhood. Goodman, Patterson and two other aurors disapparated in front of the B & B.

The Mrs Brand had come to the front door to wave Daphne goodbye. She saw the stunning spells, the car being ripped apart, the Patronus and the disapparations. She then saw Morton and Fernandez being apparated away to MACUSA jail cells.

The Obliviator arrived and gently took Mrs Brand inside to discuss what had happened.

Jane Goodman took Daphne to her office in auror headquarters. “Do you know how Morton and Fernandez knew you were there?”

The question worried Daphne as soon as she saw Morton. “I got enough from Fake Fernandez by Legilimency to give me part of the answer. There was another wizard who recognized me and reported me to him.”

“Thank-you Daphne, for leaving us something to do. We will extract everything we can from Fake Fernandez and Morton and clean up the rest of the gang. Now, have you considered a career as an auror?”

Daphne laughed and shook her head. “My family would disown me.”


	20. New Business

It had been ten months since he had been revealed as a wizard. There were problems, but Leo loved his new life. He had noticed how he had become much more used to making things happen instead of waiting for someone else to help him. There was one problem. Owls had been arriving at Purbeck Square in increasing numbers, dozens, and then hundreds. The letters were from people Leo had never met. They contained business proposals, marriage proposals, business and marriage proposals. Leo needed help, quickly.

“Harry! How do I stop all these letters? My muggle mail is intercepted by the solicitors. They tell me that there are some interesting ideas in them. They are arranging a meeting with one entrepreneur. That’s not a problem. The wizards and witches are the problems. How do I deal with all this stuff coming directly to me?”

The old alcove at The Leaky Cauldron was a favourite meeting place. “I got this at first, the owls found me everywhere. Then I found about the owl intercepts. The Ministry can intercept owls under certain circumstances. You can submit a list of names of people you are happy to get owls from. Any other owls will go to an approved collection place. You can arrange for a staff member to pick them up and work through them on your behalf. What I suggest is to set up your own personal services company with an office in Diagon Alley. Owls won’t be noticed going there. You can also arrange to have a muggle street front to the same building. Your offices can be half muggle and half magical with a secure gateway between them. You can direct Pimlico Security to share your new building, I’ve seen the office they use now, it’s dank and grim.”

“That sounds like a solution.” Leo was obviously relieved. “I know what to call the company ‘Blake HRD Services’.”

“That isn’t something to do with motorcycles is it?”

“It sure is.” Leo was grinning happily. “HRD was the name of the company that Philip Vincent bought to make his motorcycles. These days it also means Human Resource Director, which is purely coincidental.”

“Have you heard from Daphne Greengrass?” 

“That was quite a subject change! No! I haven’t. She went off on her investigation and nothing since then. Not that I’m expecting anything.” Leo didn’t want to be reminded. He was getting ready to ask Daphne out again when she just took off with almost no notice. It hadn’t been four weeks; it had been three months. Her columns still appeared in The Daily Prophet, but there were no answers to his owls, and she refused to take calls on her mirror-phone. 

“Do you know how the investigation turned out? Do you want to know?”

“No! and Yes!” Leo was obviously not happy at being kept in the dark.

Harry paused for two seconds. “Daphne found the snatcher who killed her father.”

“Great! Is there anything left of him?”

“Yes, he is at present on trial for murder in the USA. If he escapes the death sentence, which is still active over there, and after a long jail term, he can be extradited back to the UK to be tried and sent to Azkaban.”

“So, how is Daphne now?”

“I don’t know, I haven’t seen her either. I got all the information and the evidence needed to get a conviction from MACUSA. Daphne captured the snatcher herself together with another criminal he was associated with.”

Leo considered this in a despondent way. “I won’t kid you about this, I’m quite attracted to her. I don’t think she finds me that repulsive either. I’ve had plenty of that while I was under the Black family curse.”

There was a long silence, finally Harry spoke up. “Daphne knows that there are deep divisions in the wizarding world. There is none deeper than the division between the Malfoys and the Weasleys. In the old days in the USA it would be like the Hatfields and the McCoys, look that up in a history book.”

“I can’t believe that this is happening, but what does it have to do with me?”

“I’m married to a Weasley, you are my brother by adoption. So, by no choice of your own, you are in the Weasley clan. Daphne has a sister, Astoria. Astoria has been seen in public with Draco Malfoy. The suspicion is that a match has been made, either by old fashioned match-making or voluntarily, it doesn’t matter, Daphne could be a member of the Malfoy clan pretty soon.”

“Is that why she’s staying away?”

“It could be, I’m not the greatest expert on such matters. Ginny will have great fun telling you what a hopeless case I was before we finally got together. The best thing you can do is track her down and tell her that you like her a lot. It’s a start.”

What contacts did Leo have with the Greengrass family? Leo had the answer, “Mrs Greengrass, of course.”

Kenworthy, Le Blanc and Gomes arranged a meeting within minutes of the call from Leo. Greengrass Potions was taking an entirely different path from its previous life. Instead of a cramped building in a lane off Diagon Alley, the business was now housed in a new muggle office and warehouse in an industrial estate near York. Only a third of the goods traded went to wizards and witches, the rest were sold to muggles. 

The floo fireplace in the magical section of the offices came to life. Leo stepped out and brushed off his coat. “Mrs Greengrass, it’s good to meet you.”

“It’s good to meet you, Lord Pimlico.”

“Please, Mrs Greengrass, I’m Leo.”

“Well then, I’m Olivia. Please come into the boardroom.”

Leo settled into the padded chair and took in the view over the warehouse floor. “That’s not something you normally see from the boardroom, the day to day life of the business.”

“I had the boardroom moved here to help me keep the talk in here focused on the business, which is, moving boxes out of the warehouse.

“I didn’t come here to talk about Greengrass Potions or your marvellous muggle business development, Greengrass Botanicals. I really need some advice about dealing with old wizarding families.”

“Like the Greengrass family.”

“Yes, the Greengrass family, and the Malfoy family and all the other ‘Sacred 28’. Old feuds are getting in the way. Is there any way to get ‘Sacred 28’ families to ‘bury the hatchet’, and not in each other?”

“Ha! I wish there were. It’s the history that’s the problem. Muggles rewrite their history books all the time, and then ignore the whole lot if it’s not convenient. Not wizards! Ancient grievances are as fresh as the day they were made. Wizard contract law doesn’t help. Ancient contracts which we couldn’t escape made life hard for us before we were ruined. Now, with your help, we can leave that behind. All our supply contracts are short term. We have to renegotiate of course but that’s better by far.”

There was a brief silence. “For you personally, if you really want to change any issue, you have to dig out all the history, go back as far as you can, then see if you can fix the original problem. Muggles are able to say things like ‘Let it go’ and ‘Don’t dwell on the past’ but wizards won’t do that. The original problem has to be fixed.”

Olivia gave Leo the grand tour of the offices, the production facilities, and the warehouse. Leo met the staff who seemed to be most of the original Greengrass staff who were happy to come back. Leo was careful not to mention Daphne.

“There is something bothering you that you haven’t asked me about, my daughter Daphne.”

“Yes, Olivia, there is no keeping anything from you.”

“I didn’t use Legilimency. Daphne has talked about you a lot. She says things like ‘He’s like a Golden Retriever puppy, just so eager to please and harmless.’ You have impressed her like no other man has. Of course, she’s concerned about the Weasleys and the Malfoys. I have to tell you that the Astoria and Draco thing is going to happen. She knows how the Weasleys will react to a marriage. The Greengrass family will be ‘persona non grata’, only more than before. She doesn’t want to deal with that aspect of a relationship with you. It will drive a wedge between you and Harry, and have you cast out of the Weasley clan.”

Heavy cold feelings settled on Leo. “I’m sure you are being too pessimistic about that. You are not the first to talk about an ancient grievance being the cause of this. There seem to be a lot of records of historical wizarding events, is there any way of digging up what happened?”

Olivia paused before replying. “Each family keeps their own journals. Usually they are confidential. The old families keep their dirty work out of sight. They will be charmed to stop them from decaying and preserve the magical domain that gives the old curses their long life. The Malfoy family and the Weasley family have journals. Only the present head of each family will be able to read them. The Greengrass family has its journals. I will search them myself to see what I can turn up. It may take a while; they go back many centuries.”


	21. Imperial College

December arrived, the rain, the wind, and the chill were like a summer’s day to Anastasia. Leningrad, now that place had proper winters. Dr Anastasia Zaitseva was a world-renowned theoretical physicist. She trained in the best universities in Russia and was now working on research projects in the Imperial College Physics Department. However, she still talked to herself; “What am I doing here.”

It wasn’t a question. She knew what she was doing. The project in the Physics Department of the Imperial College, the one that was going to be the pinnacle of her career was over. There were simulations to run, papers to finish, final submissions for review to be made. It was no good. The creep Fischer had stolen the whole lot from her. Everything that she was forced to pass to him for assessment, he had cut and pasted into his own paper and published without even one mention of her. The great academic credit thief had done it again. He had done it many times before, to many others. All the post-graduate researchers dreaded having him assigned to them. He stole original research and claimed it as his own. When accusations of academic credit theft were made, he replied that the students were mistaken. He claimed to have directed the research, giving the students his own original ideas which they then wrote into their own essays. He seemed to have limitless influence. He was accepted as the brilliant scientist. The powerless researchers who suffered were ignored.

Once her final submissions were made, she would be out of the research offices. Her cards would be taken. No new project offers would be made. She would have to look for a proper job, she had to pay rent, buy food for her son, and carry on living; Dr Anastasia Zaitseva PhD, teaching physics and mathematics to unwilling fourteen-year-old students.

The office door still opened for her. Her login to the network still worked, for today at least. The simulation loaded up, the simulation which modelled the real simulation which would be run in the super-computer she no longer had the funding to use. The run completed; the results would be posted to her email address. Then something weird happened. This was a world-renowned scientific research facility, nothing weird happens here; not that much anyway.

The instant the run finished Anastasia heard a soft but solid thump come from the wall behind her desk. She looked around, where there had been a plain plaster wall there was now a plain plaster wall with a door in it. On examination it appeared to be an old door, centuries old by the look of it. No one else was in the room. The door felt real. It was the same temperature as the rest of the wall. There were normal gaps at the top and bottom. There was normal air flowing in underneath the door. The air was cool.

This was a complex hallucination; it was still there after an hour. If it was a hallucination there was no risk in opening the door. The handle turned easily, and the door swung into the office. On the far side was a corridor, lined with tiles. At the far end was a corridor crossing at right angles. Anastasia stood at the door waiting for something to happen. She knew that there was another office on the other side of the wall, but this door opened to somewhere else.

Then the weirdness doubled; a paper dart flew around the left corner from the cross corridor. It flew straight to Anastasia and dived into her coat pocket. The dart sat in her pocket. Anastasia took it out and unfolded what turned out to be a parchment letter. Anastasia read the letter; the weirdness tripled.

_Dear Dr Zaitseva,_

_Please do not be alarmed. As much as possible, do not mention what has happened to anyone. Please close the door, and do not open it again. We shall try to remove it as soon as possible. I must meet you to discuss this incident._

_Please be at the Corinthia Hotel, Whitehall Place, London for afternoon tea at 4pm this afternoon._

_…….…………………………………._

_Harry Potter_

_Senior Auror_

The hotel was big and expensive, in London that meant grossly expensive. Anastasia waited outside the main entrance. At 4pm a chauffeured blue Bentley pulled up and a young-looking dark-haired man wearing old fashioned round spectacles got out. He walked up to Anastasia; “Dr Zaitseva, how do you do. I’m Harry Potter, shall we go in?” 

“Only if you’re paying, this place is off the scale for what I can spend.”

“Don’t worry about that. It’s on my expense account.”

The table was waiting for them, the staff seemed to know Harry and served tea and cakes with a minimum of fuss.

“How are you feeling about what happened today? Can you tell me anything about what happened from your point of view?”

“From my point of view. Yes! You know, my area of research uses the concept of differing points of view to give different results from the same event. That’s simplified beyond recognition, but it will do for now. I don’t have any ideas about what happened. My work was in Quantum Physics. If you mention that to any science fiction fan they will jump straight to parallel universes and portals mysteriously popping up to join them together. Which is an awful lot like a what seemed to happen. All of my work, years of it, proves that nothing like that can possibly happen.”

There was a long silence, it was no more than ten seconds, but it seemed a lot longer. Harry decided to fill the void.

“The mind is a liar. It deceives us all the time. It makes up an entire fiction about what the eyes see, the ears hear, the nerves feel. It decides what it already knows to be there before it sees, hears, and touches. Most people when they see the door would not see it because it was not in the image of the wall the mind had in it. You are not encumbered by this sort of preconception. You saw what was there.”

Harry paused for breath and carried on. “I can tell you that the door, and the corridors really do exist. They are in the Department of Mysteries, which is a department of the Ministry of Magic. I am employed by the Ministry as a law enforcement officer. They give me jobs like this because for some reason people believe what I tell them, no matter how unbelievable it is.”

“What we would like to know is, how the connection was made to your office, and how we are going to end the connection, because right now we can’t. What we have been able to do is set up an illusion in your office so that any person, other than you, won’t see the door; using the mental weakness I described before.”

The tea and cakes were really good. Anastasia enjoyed another delicacy and cup of tea. Harry sipped his tea and watched Anastasia. 

Anastasia took a deep breath and sighed. “You are good at deception. Detailed deception, hiding things in plain sight, persuading people that things are what they seem to be and not what they really are. When you say ‘we’, how many of you are there? Do the state security people know about you?” 

Harry considered for a second. “In the UK there are about fifty thousand practitioners. The legal authority controlling our activities is the Ministry of Magic. The Ministry has about two thousand five hundred officers at the moment. The Ministry is connected to the government of the UK through the Prime Minister’s office. It’s a collaborative arrangement rather than authoritative. Our society is ancient, we have always described ourselves as wizards and witches. The power and energy we use we call magic. We seem to be born with the ability to focus and control power from some part of the universe. We can’t give the gift to someone who is not born with it.”

The tearoom was emptying. Anastasia came to a decision. “I would like to find out more about your work. I need a new career. My project is finishing within a few days, and it is most unlikely that I will be given another. You obviously have resources. Can you involve me in an investigation of what the hell is going on?”


	22. Imperial College Library

The flat in Kensington was tiny. Draco was now used to living in humble circumstances. He had rented rooms in student digs for the last five years. He had money now for something better. He needed to improve his accommodation and his employment. A real job gave him enough to rent a two bedroom flat with a kitchen at one end of a sitting room. To his own astonishment, he was getting married, to Astoria Greengrass.

His father had been released from Azkaban and was now on probation. He would not leave Malfoy Manor. He was not allowed a wand, the conditions of his probation meant that he was under house arrest. That suited him. He was only interested in making sure that contents of the wine cellar didn’t go to waste.

Wizarding society held no attraction for Draco. The thought of walking along Diagon Alley, enduring the sneers and comments of nearly every wizard and witch was enough to confirm in Draco’s thoughts the attractions of living in the muggle world. He was not known and was accepted for who he was now. Draco’s own probation would soon be finished. If he wished, he could apply for permission to obtain a wand. He was not going to apply. As long as wizards left him alone, he didn’t need a wand.

The wedding invitations had been sent out. There were only a few. Astoria and Olivia Greengrass were also living in the muggle world. The new Greengrass business was just getting established and worked mainly in the muggle world with a small number of magical customers. The conversation with his mother was short and to the point. “I am marrying Astoria whether you like it or not. She has no dowry. You are invited and any family member who wants to come can do so. The ceremony will be in the York Registry Office, there will be an informal reception in a muggle pub near the new Greengrass business.”

“But Draco, what about our relations, we need to be on good terms with them.” 

“The extended Greengrass family have about the same attitude towards me as the extended Malfoy family do towards Astoria, they loath us. Olivia Greengrass and Daphne support Astoria without question, and they seem to tolerate me. Please come to the ceremony at least.”

The wedding went smoothly, the reception was small and convivial. Narcissa was the only member of the Malfoy family to attend. By the end of the reception she was talking freely to Mrs Greengrass, Daphne, and Astoria. Most of the guests were employees from the Greengrass business and the shop where Astoria worked. The library manager who gave Draco his first muggle job made the trip from the south coast to attend.

The job offer from the Imperial College Main Library was as astonishing as his marriage. Draco had applied for library assistant posts advertised at major universities. His intention was to work and study to complete his degree in librarianship. He gave the names of his former supervisors as referees. They must have said good things because Imperial College invited him to an interview. The job offer was quickly sent and accepted, and Draco had done the six-week induction course before his wedding.

“I can still work in York and live in London as long as there is a floo connection.” Astoria was trying to reassure Draco that she could keep her job in the herbalist’s shop to help with paying the stunning rent on a London flat. “Mum is going to expand the London outlet as well. Diagon Alley isn’t big enough for the business we do. Eventually, she wants me to take it over. Daphne doesn’t want to work in the business, she was never a potions student. The business is a bit boring for her.”

The section Draco worked in handled the academic papers. All around the world researchers wrote papers detailing their experiments and research. These papers were published in huge numbers. Academics at other institutions were expected to study the papers published in their own areas of research, to comment and give helpful criticism if embarrassing mistakes were found, like arithmetic errors on the second page. Most of the papers were online but the important ones were printed on old fashioned paper and distributed by the papers section of the library. Many academics found that reading ink on paper was a lot easier than reading from the computer screen.

“Here is your delivery for the Physics Department Draco, make sure that Dr Zaitseva gets hers, the last assistant didn’t like going into her office for some odd reason.” Draco’s supervisor gave him another parcel to pile on the delivery trolley.

Work in the Imperial College library was simpler than the local library where he worked before. This could change of course. Draco completed the deliveries, the last on the list was Dr Anastasia Zaitseva. Draco didn’t take too much notice of his supervisors’ comments. The door to Anastasia’s office was open, he called at the door. “Hello! papers delivery.”

The answer came quickly; “Come in. Just put them on the bench over there.”

The odd looking door in the wall caught Draco’s attention. “What is that door doing there?”

Anastasia slowly looked up from her notes; “Door! What door is that?”

“That door right there!” Draco was pointing straight at the door to the Department of Mysteries.

“What is your name? You’re new, aren’t you?”

“My name is Draco Malfoy. Yes, I am new, and I think I have seen a door like that before.”

“Where have you seen a door such as this before?”

“At my old school, I don’t know what made me think of that.”

Something made Draco look at Dr Zaitseva. She was staring at him as though he was a bug under a magnifying glass.

“That school, what was its name?”

“Hogwarts.”

“Ah! Shut the door, now! Lock it as well.”

The door was shut. Draco was not liking this at all.

“Well Dragon. What are you doing here?”

“Why did you call me that? It’s what my name means, I know, but why?”

“I think that you are anything but a dragon. Forgive me. I’m trying to assess what to do about you. You are obviously a wizard. You saw the door. It has been hidden by wizards from the Ministry. You know about the Ministry? Yes?”

“Yes. This isn’t a trap is it?”

“No Dragon, it is not a trap. I think it is some kind of accident. The Department of Mysteries wizards have told me that something that I did caused the door to appear. They can’t remove it. Somehow, I set up a come-and-go space between my office and the Ministry. It is being held in place by something of mine in this office.”

“Who have you been talking to at the Ministry?”

“Mainly Harry Potter, he is in charge of the Ministry team working on this.”

“They’ve got the A-Team on this. They will be panicking that they can’t remove it. Accidents happen, but they always seem to be able to fix them.”

“What about you Dragon, why are you delivering papers and not living by magic?”

“I had problems with official magic years ago. My family had the problem and I joined in before I was old enough to know better. I have deliberately chosen to live in the muggle world and not use magic.”

“Right, I will get you assigned to my project team. How much do you know about computers?”

“I know how to break them. Wizards cause computers and any high-tech device to go crazy. The only way we can use them is to set up long leads and shield the main unit.”

“That’s interesting, nobody told me that.”

“It’s only wizards who work in the muggle world who have had to work that out.”

“Secrecy is even more important than ever, Dragon. You obviously can keep your mouth shut when you need to. You know Harry Potter?”

“Yes, but I don’t want my involvement revealed if you can help it.”

“I have to tell Harry. I will ask him to keep your name out of it for as long as possible. You’re not wanted for anything are you?”

“I was on probation, but that is over now.”


	23. The Golden State

Why wasn’t this working? Professor Fischer had not admitted to anyone that he hadn’t solved a technical problem in twenty years. He always got a graduate student to work problems out for him. That was what they were there for. The notes from Zaitseva looked right. The paper made sense. Why wasn’t the simulation giving the same answers? He didn’t have the time to work through the code. The problem is, how to get someone to work on it out of sight of the department sticky beaks. 

Freddy Jessen got the call from the creep Fischer. It was yet another backdoor job. He had to collect a package of Java modules sent to him by email. Then he had to go to the old Indian River Ranch bunkhouse and start looking for the problems. Fischer had set up a Physics department computer for him, all he had to do was turn up, run the programmes, and look for any problems.

The results certainly were not the same as the notes said they would be. Jessen searched for any comments in the source code to see if they agreed with the notes from the paper. He found the line that said, ‘Make a door to the next parallel universe.’ It was in a paragraph which showed how it was impossible to do. The line should have read ‘It is not possible to make a door to the next parallel universe.’ Because he was bored and thinking more of his next Crusaders re-enactment pageant, Jessen changed the line to read, ‘Make a new Crac des Chevaliers.’ It made just as much sense as a door to a parallel universe.

He had made some changes to reduce the mathematical calculations, hoping to make it run faster. The next simulation run didn’t work as planned. It ran for hours and nothing happened. It was getting late. Jessen crashed out on the best bed.

The next morning, Jessen made himself a simple breakfast and checked for any results. The programme had finished but the room was dark and cold, there was no sunlight. The view out of the front door had changed. Instead of miles of dry grass there was a massive stone wall which blocked out the morning sun.

The stone wall joined neatly to the bunkhouse wall outside where the computer was sitting. Hours later Jessen had to accept that this was just too weird. He had tried to find the end of the wall. It went around many corners with massive round towers at each corner. When he found a square tower with a gate leading to an open courtyard, he was forced to admit it to himself. This was a replica of the Crac des Chevaliers, the original was on a hilltop in Syria, but this was not it. The stone walls were perfectly made with no gaps. The stone looked like grey granite. He had to get Fischer to look at this.

Fischer didn’t want to hear from Jessen until everything was working as he had promised. The drive from Walnut Grove was uneventful, until the last few minutes along the dirt track leading to the ranch. “Jessen, what is that? What is going on?”

“I was hoping you could tell me Professor. It looks to me like a replica of a Crusader castle. It might be a copy of the Crac des Chevaliers. The original still exists, it is sitting on a hill in southern Syria.”

It took an hour of walking around the walls and the courtyard for Fischer to accept that it was real. “You say that you changed a comment in the main programme and the system then spent all night making this, exactly what you put in the code. Only it was a comment, it is ignored by the computer, it is there to remind the programmers of what they were doing.”

Fischer silently stared at the wall; his mouth was hanging open. Finally, he spoke up, “We have to do an experiment. Change to comment to say something else.”

“Like what, another fortress? A stack of gold bars?”

The greed in Jessen’s voice didn’t go un-noticed, but for the time being scientific experimental methods prevailed. Fischer slowly spoke next his words in what he hoped was a thoughtful manner; “We will try something simple. The computer isn’t doing this. It didn’t do this when I ran it in my office. What is different? We moved it out here. It must be something to do with this place.”

“I know you don’t like to talk about anything outside what is proven to be scientific Professor, but could we be in a magical place? A place where magic works just because it is asked to. I’ve read a lot about historical times, that is why I put the Crusader castle name into the comment line. Those people were not stupid. However, they had a different starting point in their thinking to us. They knew that magic worked. It was after sixteen hundred to seventeen hundred that only the amateurs and religious nuts were left trying to make it work.”

The atmosphere became frosty. Professor Fischer turned to Jessen; “Let me do the thinking, Jessen. We will experiment. We will do this before someone turns up and demands to know how a full-sized castle came be here. Change the comment to describe something which could be used to control unseen powers, but not a wand. That is too much for me to accept right now. Put my cell phone next to the computer and ask for it to be turned into an unseen powers controller.”

The computer finished the next run. A brief flash of light around the desk came from an unseen source at the moment the run finished. Fischer looked at his phone. The display was still working. It wasn’t hot or cold, it seemed to be exactly the same as it was before. Fisher prodded the phone with a pencil. It looked quite normal. He picked it up. There was a brief burst of red light in the room and a puff of wind coming from nowhere. The phone switched on when the button was pressed. 

“Jessen, use your phone to call me.”

The call was made. Fischer answered and the connection went through. Cell phone coverage in the area was strong because a town and a psychiatric hospital were over the ridge from the ranch, the phone tower was located on the ridge and could be clearly seen.

The next step was to look at the built-in functions. These were simple, Clock, Calendar, SMS, Fax, Email, and Spells.

“Whoa! What was that! Spells!”

The function was activated, a list of what might have been spells appeared on the tiny screen.

  * Accio
  * Aguamenti
  * Alohomora
  * Avis
  * Capacious Extremis
  * Colloportus
  * Depulso
  * More . . .



Fischer looked at Jessen. “All right mister medieval expert; are these spells? If so, what do they do?”

“Wow! I have no idea. If we want to find out in a hurry, we need someone who already knows this.”

There was a long period of contemplation. “Let’s make our assumptions. First, unseen controlled forces are real. Second, there are people who know what to do to control it.”

Jessen cut in; “Third, the programme has made a sophisticated interface to unseen controlled forces in this location. If all the assumptions are true, then we can ask for just about anything.”

“We have to ask the system to show us the nearest person connected to unseen controlled forces.”

The changes were made, the comment now read ‘Make a map which shows the name and location of every person using unseen controlled forces within fifty miles of the current location.’

The programme was run. A red light flashed in the room. A folded map popped into existence on the desk next to the computer.

Jessen unfolded the map. It showed fine detail of roads, and buildings for fifty miles in every direction. There were two names linked to tiny drawings of people on the map. The drawings were animated. One was walking along a road forty miles to the east, another was sitting in a bar in the town over the ridge. The walker was tagged ‘Thomas Lecky’ and the bar sitter was tagged ‘Marietta Edgecombe’ ‘’.

“Jessen, I need you to get over to that bar right now and get this Marietta Edgecombe back here. We have to find out about spells right now. She, if she is a ‘she’, might know how to hide this castle.” Professor Fischer was starting to unravel. This one day was too much. Another day like it would have him back in therapy.

The bar was an ordinary small-town bar. It was full of off duty staff from the hospital. Jessen took the quickest shortcut he could. He went to the bar and told the bartender. “I’m looking for Marietta Edgecombe. I’m here to offer her a job.”

The bartender pointed to the corner. A young woman was sitting on her own with an empty glass in front of her.

“Hi! Marietta, I’m Freddy Jessen.”

“Go away!”

“Marietta, please listen, I’m here to offer you a job.”

“What sort of job?”

“Well, I’ve been told that you have certain skills and knowledge which my employer needs right now.”

“What do you mean?”

“This is confidential, don’t get upset, I happen to know that you know something about, um”

Jessen whispered, “um, about magic.”

Marietta gave a look hostile enough to make Jessen want run for it.

“This is your last chance, go away!”

“The boss will pay you a thousand dollars for one day.”

Marietta looked away. She sat still for so long that Jessen felt he had to check for the best escape route to the door.

“All right, I’ll talk to your boss. You know I’m a witch. I know you’re not a wizard. If anything that I don’t like happens, you will regret it. That’s guaranteed.”

Marietta looked at the castle, the map and the ‘Spells’ function on the phone.

“The castle is easy. I think that it is a come-and-go object or space or something like that. You can see it because you know that it is there. Anyone who doesn’t know that will have trouble seeing. If you don’t need it, it will hide itself. When you do need it, it will come back again. When Professor Fischer first came here, he could see it because he is Jessens boss and it recognized that. This is magic, by the way.”

“The map is interesting; but the thing I want to try out is your ‘Spells’ function.”

Marietta took the phone, pointed at a broom leaning on the wall and selected ‘Accio’. The broom flew across the room. Marietta caught it, then selected ‘Depulso’. The broom flew back and hit the wall.

She handed the phone back to the Professor.

“You used this computer programme to turn your phone into a wand.”

“Yes”

“You have been making some very magical things with it, like this map.

“That’s right.”

“Has anybody from an official organisation visited you, to talk about this?”

“No, will there be?”

“Oh yes. They will be here pretty soon if they are not watching you already.”

Fischer strolled to the table and opened the map. “There are no other names on here apart from yours and this ‘Thomas Lecky’.

“That explains it. Thomas Lecky is the First Nation Protector for this realm. We must be just inside the border.”

“First Nation, he is an American Indian?”

“Yes, MACUSA have to get permission from him before they can enter here. You should have got permission from him before doing any of this.”

Fischer looked concerned. “Who is MACUSA?”

“Magical Congress of the USA. They are the law. They will deal with you pretty severely for performing uncontrolled magic. Whether you are in a First Nation realm or not.”

“You aren’t part of MACUSA?”

“No, I was employed by a wizard who it turns out was a criminal. I didn’t know what he was doing. He was collecting wizards who ended up in the hospital and was forming a criminal gang with them. He told me that he was helping them. What he was doing was robbing and killing wealthy wizards and witches and then hiding his gang in the hospital. Magic made it easy.”

“I saw a witch in the bar one day who I knew years ago. That was my job, spotting witches and wizards for him to recruit. When he tried to pick her up, she stunned his bodyguard, blew his car up and stunned him. Then she turned them over to MACUSA. Never let Daphne Greengrass get the drop on you. They interrogated me, and then let me go when they decided I was being conned by my boss.”

“Is there any way that I can learn more about this business without being closed down by MACUSA.”

“First you have to get cosy with Thomas Lecky. You will need a lot of money to do that. Once he has you under his control, you will have to go on paying him off, forever.”

“This guy sounds like a criminal. Why hasn’t MACUSA arrested him?”

“Because this is his country, his realm. He is the king of a little magical country. It is no more than eighty miles long and fifty miles wide. The way you have been able to get magic to work for you is probably his doing. He opens the flow of natural raw magic for his own use. It is usually something illegal if it happened anywhere else.”

The possibilities were assessed in Fisher’s mind. “So, if we stay here, we can carry on working with this as long as we pay off Thomas Lecky. If we leave his country, MACUSA will pick us up and end the whole thing.”

“And now I need my money, I’m getting out of here before Lecky arrives.”

“I’ll send you a check. It will be from the University of California.”

“Make sure that happens. Lecky won’t be the only problem you will have to deal with if you don’t pay up.”

“What will you do if we won’t drive you back to town?” Fischer looked as though he thought he was being clever.

“This.”

Marietta turned on the spot and apparated with a sharp bang.

“Whoa! We have got a lot of catching up to do.”

Fischer didn’t reply.

Suddenly they were aware of another person in the room.

An elderly man stood at the door, looking from Fischer to Jessen and back again.

“Who are you?”

“I am Thomas Lecky.”


	24. The New Project

The mirror-phone on Leo’s workshop bench came to life. Harry Potter’s voice called out, “Pick up Leo, give me a few minutes please.”

“Yes Harry, fire away.”

“Leo, we have a situation which needs your particular talents. Urgently.”

“I’m free right now Harry, do you want to come here?”

“I’ll be there at 10. I will bring one guest. Let’s make it a main reception room event.”

“OK, I’ll get the troops started on it.”

The blue Bentley delivered Harry and Dr Anastasia Zaitseva to 15 Purbeck Square. In the main reception room, Anastasia admired the portraits of the Pimlico and Black ancestors. 

“They look like they could talk, they certainly have some sort of life of their own.”

“Don’t test them too much, they are magical. The portraits have the memories and essential life force of their subjects. They are charmed to stay still when a muggle is in the room. If we were all magical, they would have no trouble joining in the conversation.”

Tea was served by John, Leo arrived after changing into his morning meeting outfit.

“Dr Zaitseva, this is The Viscount Pimlico etc, etc. Don’t call him anything but Leo, he won’t answer to it.”

“How do you do Doctor. Harry hasn’t told me anything about what we will be doing, apart from the fact that you are connected with Imperial College, you’re a muggle, and you’ve been accidently introduced to the wizarding world.”

“The short version of the story is that somehow, no one seems to know how, a doorway has been set up between my office at Imperial College and the Ministry of Magic. I am about to lose my office because my project has finished. I can’t remove the doorway. Harry’s people can’t remove it. The secrecy of the wizarding world is at risk. In the short term I need another project to allow me to keep my office until a fix is found. To do this I need someone with a lot of money, someone like you, to sponsor a project for me.”

‘‘Think no more of it. Do you have a project proposal here?” A folder was handed over. Leo took it to the entry hall. Minutes later he returned to the reception room. 

“Done! Kenworthy will submit it for me today, with the hurry up charms needed to get it approved. Your office is yours as long as you need it. There is one thing, the solicitors want me to be involved with this project from now on, invitations to the important meetings and so on.”

That was Harry’s cue; “I was hoping you would get involved. Anastasia, I have some others I would like to get in to help. Besides me, and the Department of Mysteries people, we should have Ron and Hermione Weasley. I have worked with them before and they have always been useful.”

Anastasia found her voice again, “Thank-you for doing this, Leo. I have no idea how much it will cost; the initial estimate was 3 million pounds.”

“Oh, it won’t cost me that much, tax advantages, rebates, you name it. The lawyers and accountants will have their fun with it. Roger mentioned that I should set up a permanent bursary and post-graduate research sponsorship fund to do this every year.”

Tea was served again, “Mary makes a good chocolate cake.” Harry took his second piece. “If I had to do this through the Ministry there would be months of meetings and curly questions to answer to get approval. Leo is a good sort of brother to have.”

The office was still the same, the door was still there. Anastasia relaxed for the first time in months. The project final submission was sent off. At last she could go back to her flat and enjoy an evening meal with her son Peter. As she went out the door she ran into the head of her department, Professor O’Connell. “Anastasia, I’m glad I caught you. We have had an interesting communication from a Viscount Pimlico. He is going to sponsor your next project, wholly sponsor that is, with a donation for new equipment as well. You have three years of funding, as much supercomputer time as you want, and two staff as well. Did you know about this?” 

“I met him through a mutual acquaintance. He mentioned setting up a fund to grant a sponsorship like this each year. He seemed to be quite an ordinary sort of person apart from the millions in cash that is.”


	25. Technical Help

The mirror-phone sounded its conventional ringtone. Leo wiped the oil off his hands and answered. “Hello Leo! Arthur Smith here. Look Leo, no beating about the bush, I know you’re an important man now, but I have a favour to ask. My sister’s son Jonathan has graduated from university and is having a bit of trouble getting the right sort of job. Flipping burgers isn’t his thing, you know. He has degrees in Information Technology and Physics and he just can’t seem to get short listed anywhere. I just wanted to ask if you could see your way to getting him an interview somewhere, just an interview would be good.”

“Arthur, get him to come to 15 Purbeck Square tomorrow at 9am. I’ll take him to see a person who needs his help. It’ll just be an interview. We can take it from there.”

“Thanks Leo, my son, this is great. My sister was getting a bit concerned, you know.”

“Don’t worry Arthur, I’ve met Johnathan. I’m sure there will be something he can do for us.”

The silver Mercedes glided through the traffic to the entrance to Imperial College. “Here we are Jonathan. The person you will be seeing is Dr Anastasia Zaitseva. It’s still a good walk from here. The college provides the IT network and technical help and Anastasia is an expert Java programmer herself. What she needs is a person who can look at what is happening with the systems here and not be encumbered by any preconceived notions about the issues. The fact that you don’t have insider knowledge and you do have a broad knowledge of IT and physics is what we are looking for.”

“OK”

A man of few words. 

The job offer was made and accepted. The technical investigation began. It took a week to get an answer.

Nobody liked the answer they got.

A new door had been made in the wall of a secure laboratory. The door opened into another corridor in the Department of Mysteries.

The team met at Imperial college. Harry was tense, Hermione had a look of horror, Ron couldn’t accept what they were told and what they were seeing. “This muggle thing, operated by a muggle, performed magic that we can’t reverse. I don’t believe it. What is the trick?”

Anastasia replied, “I was hoping you could tell us that. There is no magic here, no wands, no spells, and no wizards. We have looked at the wall above the door, and below, and to the sides. There is something there. A small inscription in some ancient language.”

There was a rush to the doorway. Hermione saw it first. “There it is. The whole door is surrounded by a series of runes. They are fading but they will stay there. We didn’t see them at the other door because they had already faded, and we were in too much of a rush.”

There was a sudden silence. Harry spoke, “We now know how the doorways have been able to resist us. We should be able to work out a way to remove them. What can we do about muggle machines performing advanced magic?”

All eyes were on Anastasia, “This is a problem. I didn’t know that this would happen. I also didn’t know how dangerous it would be. The entire set of programmes have been sent to reviewers in different universities around the world. If anyone runs the programme the same thing could happen. We must investigate what is happening from a muggle point of view. We don’t need wizards to make it work.”

Harry spoke first, “At least you have shown us what is happening. We can now pick up any occurrence from the background flow of magic. The authorities can then react and fence the area with illusions and repelling charms. This is just kneejerk reactions, but it is the best we can do for now.”

Ron shook his head, “I still can’t believe this is happening, these muggles have found a way to make magic!”

The door opened and Draco Malfoy walked in. Ron stood up and drew his wand.

“Ron! Don’t!” Hermione tried to hold Ron’s wand arm down.

Ron yelled the spell, “Stupefy!”

Draco crashed to the floor. Ron pulled away from Hermione, rushed to Draco, levitated him, took his arm and apparated.

“Well, that explains Dragon’s reluctance to be involved. He was just a library assistant. Is this the way all wizards behave?”

“When he’s a Weasley and he sees a Malfoy, that’s what can happen.” Harry sadly shook his head. “Hermione, you’d better get back to the Ministry. Ron’s probably taken Draco straight to the cells.”

“The wizarding world is riddled with feuds going back generations. It is all very destructive. Draco made the mistake of being born into the wrong family, from a certain point of view. This has been going on from the beginning, from ancient times.”


	26. Ancient Times

Before the Imperial College meeting, Harry had an urgent summons from the Minister. 

“Harry, MACUSA has sent me details of some unregulated magic happening in California. I haven’t told them about our incident. How is it going?”

“I don’t have confirmation on this, but Merryfield from the Department of Mysteries thinks he has found an outbreak of raw magic around Imperial College. It has been recorded in the old journals but has been quiet for hundreds of years.”

“That would have been there before the college was started. The Ministry and Diagon Alley were built over sources of natural raw magic, as was Hogwarts and all the wizarding settlements.” The minister looked at Harry. “We always thought that flows of raw magic were stable and were the result of having many wizards and witches staying in one place, and of course we haven’t had muggles making electronic equipment before. I’m afraid we have been far too lax in investigating muggle technology and how raw magic reacts to it. Are you going to tell Dr Zaitseva about this?”

“I want her and her technical experts to investigate everything without knowing too much about magic. If it is something that we can handle without interfering with the muggle world then that will mean fewer people to Obliviate. As for MACUSA, we aren’t sure about anything yet, I suppose we can say unregulated magic has been happening here but we aren’t sure about what it is, which is true enough.”

There was a short silence.

“There is another matter which concerns me personally. Leo Blake wants to initiate a peace settlement between the Malfoys and the Weasleys. I think the feud is getting in the way of his plans.”

Kingsley looked at Harry, “Oh! Well, that has been tried before. Time and generations passing have done nothing to reduce the intensity of it. What is he hoping to do?”

“Right now, he is getting one old family to work through their old journals, as far back as they can go. He is hoping that a search will reveal the initial event, and then something can be done to lift the curses.”

“That would be the Greengrass family, would it?”

“Yes, and through Olivia Greengrass and Astoria possibly Lucius might be persuaded to search the Malfoy journals. I had been hoping to involve the Weasleys in Leo’s education catch up plan, but the feud got in the way from the beginning.”

The owl came to Leo’s private owlery. The mirror-phone chimed and displayed a one line message. “Owl from Olivia Greengrass.”

The transfiguration homework would have to wait. The letter was short and worrying. Olivia wanted Leo to go to York for a day to discuss some difficult problems turning up in the most ancient journals.

The boardroom at Greengrass Potions was a comfortable as ever. Olivia Greengrass did not look comfortable at all. “Leo, the search has been difficult for me. Not because of all the translation of ancient texts, it is because of what was in them. What do you know about slavery in Britain?”

“Slaves were first brought into Britain in the Tudor period; it was introduced with the enslavement of black Africans.”

“That was what you were taught in your school lessons. Yes, there were black African slaves but who were the first slaves in Britain? Think about it now.”

“If that’s not right, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“What about the Roman Empire?”

“That was two thousand years ago. Yes, there were slaves; but they were Roman, not British.”

“What about before the Roman Empire?”

“The Celts! They weren’t slave owners. They were druids, kindly grandfather types in long white robes.”

“That was from another page in your school-book. Haven’t you got the message yet; your school-books are works of fiction.”

“I give up. I don’t remember anybody saying anything about slavery other than that the slaves were all African.”

“OK, school is out, now for a short burst of the truth. Ancient Britons from before recorded history made slaves of other ancient Britons. It was the same in nearly every other society throughout the world. How do I know this? Wizards have recorded it in their journals which muggle historians never get to see. These slaves were real slaves, they were property, like cattle.”

The boardroom was getting stuffy. “Where are you going with this, are you saying that wizards had something to do with slavery?”

“The Dark Lord, Tom Riddle, modelled himself on wizard lords from the earliest times. They used the darkest magic to make themselves strong in battle. It was hard to kill them, if they did die, the next dark lord could be worse than the first. Muggles made slaves of muggles; wizards made slaves of other wizards and muggles. The wizard lords used their slaves to take muggles and sell them to slave traders from Europe. Those slave traders were Celts, Danes and Romans.”

Leo spoke up; “I have read history books, wizard’s history. They didn’t mention any of this.”

“You will notice that the history books are very sketchy for anything before 1066. The new Norman king, William the Conqueror, made a list of all his new possessions, land, livestock, workers, and slaves. It was called the Domesday Book. It still exists. According to the book, ten percent of the entire population were slaves. The slaves were ancient Britons and in Ireland they were ancient Irish. Wizards are just as capable of sweeping stuff under carpet as anyone else. I should know. Before 900 the Greengrass family bought slaves when they couldn’t hire anyone to work in the fields. Some of the slaves we bought were Weasleys. We bought them from the Malfoys. The Malfoys were slaves themselves, they were owned by wizard lords and had to work as slave-masters. They enslaved wizards who couldn’t pay the debts they owed to the wizard lords. The Malfoys were never lords, they were common wizards who did whatever they had to do to survive. Of course, this is exactly what they did when they were enslaved by Tom Riddle. Death Eaters were all slaves. Don’t be sorry for them, they could have made the choice my Julius made, and die rather than submit to him.”

There was no response from Leo. Olivia spoke again.

“Let’s wrap this up. The Malfoy journals will have the details we need. The curses that keep the Malfoy-Weasley feud alive come from events such as this. We need to find such things as vows by the head of the Weasley family to oppose the Malfoys forever, and curses by the Malfoys to make the Weasleys penniless servants forever.”


	27. The Reception

The committee members were not impressed. Dr Zaitseva had explained why the paper she had submitted was now being withdrawn. “You’re saying that the contents of your paper were wrong from beginning to end.”

“Yes, it’s a pity, but when the assumptions you have to make at the beginning of any set of theories is wrong then whole lot is wrong, isn’t it?”

The chairman was red faced angry; “This can’t be right; every theoretical physics research project for the last ten years has had the same set of assumptions.”

“Which is why nothing has ever come to a conclusion; we have run into dead ends with every theoretical development.”

The most junior committee member spoke up. “Your paper contained exactly the same conclusions as Professor Fischer’s, so you’re saying he is wrong as well.”

“He probably won’t agree, but yes, he is wrong. We have to come to some kind of agreement on what the assumptions should be. It looks like we lost sight of the fact that the assumptions were just that, assumptions. Nobody ever made enough progress to prove that the assumptions were right.”

The chairman’s appearance changed from angry red to pale nervous white. “What are you doing with your new project?”

“Well, I am doing what is always done in theoretical physics. I am writing a set of assumptions, only these will be different from what has been done before.”

The college administration representative put her hand up. “Before we finish, I have to get agreement on the date and time for the reception for the Viscount Pimlico. He is a major benefactor for the college and this department, and we have to make sure that the right kind of public perception is created.”

“Don’t invite Professor Fischer, when he finds out that I’ve withdrawn my paper he will be more than a bit upset with me.”

The workshop under the mews house was a safe place to complain. “Harry! I am not a society person. This reception will be crowded with all sorts of academic and business heavyweights. Why do I have to go?”

“You don’t have to go, Kenworthy will be sending a representative, but the minister and I want you to show up, you will be quite safe. The Pimlico team can judge when you can leave without insulting anyone.”

“What is this about really. We, and I mean the wizarding world ‘we’, don’t do this sort of thing. We don’t draw attention to ourselves.”

Harry thought for a second, “You are in both worlds, you have a right to be there, it is expected of you. You have been trained by me and your tutors on what to say and what not to say. Don’t be concerned. There is a reason for this. The whole ‘doorway’ incident has unnerved a lot of people. We need to be more involved in muggle business, so that we can be better prepared to plug any more gaps, if they open up.”

The suit was right for the occasion, but Leo was definitely a fish out of water. Anastasia met him at the door of the convention room. There were dozens of people there. “You look most civilized Leo. You do own a suit after all.”

“Ha! I own a room full of them, this is the second time I’ve worn one. Are those people over there reporters?”

“They have promised to be on their best behaviour. The college needs the right kind of press coverage. One donor like yourself will sometimes attract another.”

The speeches were embarrassing. Leo heard a couple of complimentary, and entirely untrue, stories about himself. He had managed to wriggle out of giving a reply. The reporters were actually quite polite. They seemed to want to confirm what was said in the packages they had been given, and that was about it. Leo was happy to be an earnest and dull working lad who somehow inherited a pile of money.

Someone turned up at the reception who was not expected. It was Professor Fischer. He had been invited, but only because he had been associated with the Imperial College before. No-one expected him to show up. Fischer insisted on giving Leo a ceremonial charm, “For good luck, I would also like to talk to you about sponsoring projects in California as well.”

The reception was closing down, people were leaving. Fischer had his back turned. Anastasia came up to Leo, took hold of his arm, silently pointed at Fischer, then put her finger in her open mouth and made the well-known gagging sounds. Leo stifled a laugh. Instantly, everything was dark and there was a horrible tug on his belly from behind. The charm was a portkey. Leo grabbed for his wand. He couldn’t move. There was a terrific sensation of rushing lights and cold air. Then he was dumped on a concrete floor. He was bound head to foot. 

There were people in the room. A voice said, “He’s conscious, get the next portkey.”

A strong hand grabbed him, and the night rushed past him again. It was a long trip this time. Another portkey trip left Leo dizzy, disoriented and throwing up.

The night became lighter, it had been hours, Leo had been awake and then he must have been stunned. Now he was awake again, he was no longer tied up. His wand was gone, of course. The room was about the size of a small bedroom. There was no furniture, just a bucket in the corner. A window was boarded up, the door had no handle on his side.

Kidnapped, held for ransom, Leo never believed it was possible. What was he to do now? He would be able to think better if his head didn’t hurt so much. Lying on the bare wooden floor, Leo calmed his mind. It was a lot easier than he thought possible. Was there a Legilimens watching him? He didn’t sense anything, not even the slightest touch. Leo searched for another person. There were two outside the building. They were easy to touch, they were muggles. There was one person in a room next to him. It was Anastasia Zaitseva. Why was she there? Leo tried to connect with her by Legilimens. She was a muggle, even a beginner like Leo could touch her. She was frightened and confused. She was a prisoner like him.

The construction of the room was cheap and agricultural. It was a storeroom in a wooden barn. It was not new, and not more than fifty years old. The bucket was a cheap galvanized thing, stamped ‘Made in China’. That didn’t tell Leo anything. He had to wait until somebody did something.


	28. Côte d’Azur

The sea was beautiful. The most beautiful blue that could be imagined. That was the impression at first sight. The Côte d’Azur certainly deserved its reputation, as long as you viewed the coast and the Mediterranean from your own private terrace with a pool, a tennis court and a sauna. The house wasn’t as massive as Swanfleet Hall but what it lacked in sheer size it made up for in beauty. 

The week before Louisa had arranged to travel to the villa, Pimlico Security in Paris had sent a team to secure the area. The permanent house staff had their own apartments hidden next to the villa. Anyone staying there would not have been aware of the staff inside the house, or the security team outside in the grounds or patrolling the neighbourhood. Nearly every house for kilometres around had security of some sort.

The guests decided that they would not leave if they could help it. Graham and Louisa had married in a small ceremony with close family and a few friends in the old church in Surbiton. This was the kind of honeymoon they could never have dreamt of before.

“Graham, are you happy with just sitting on the terrace reading? Andre tells me that we have the use of a large cruiser moored down in Nice, we could go for a day cruise if you like.”

“Louisa, just being here is what I need. I never felt it before, since coming here I can feel old injuries being closed up and I’m recovering from stuff that I never admitted was hurting. Next week, some cruising would be great.”

The week passed, “Leo messaged me that he has to attend a reception for Imperial College tonight. He’s not looking forward to it.”

“That’s tough isn’t it. All those people hanging around him, telling him what a wonderful citizen he is. You will have to make sure he gets a swelled head deflator for his next birthday.” Graham could deliver some pithy remarks when he felt they were called for.

Supper was excellent, as usual. Louisa and Graham took their customary stroll along the terrace to admire the sweep of lights along the coast.

Alarms sounded from the house and the security station hidden in the grounds. 

Graham took Louisa and rushed her to the next terrace level down and pushed her under a stone bench.

Green flashes cut across the grounds. 

Red flashes came in response, four wizards on brooms flew over the villa.

A dome of light came to life covering the villa and grounds. 

All four flyers were captured on the dome surface and were drawn down to the ground.

All the lights were then extinguished.

Shouts came from the front of the villa. Five intruders ran around the pathway from the front of the villa towards the terrace. All were firing spells; no targets could be seen. Red flashes lit the intruders up.

A shorter man sprinted from the dining room doors towards the terrace. Spells were shot at him. They deflected off him and tore up the gardens and shrubs. 

The runner reached a wall at the end if the terrace. 

Brilliant white lights flooded the grounds, there were no more shadows.

The runner was Roland, he crouched behind the wall and aimed his pistol at the suddenly visible attackers.

A harsh voice laughed; “What do you think you are going to do with that, muggle.”

Two coughs came from the pistol. The laughing wizard dropped his wand and collapsed, clutching at his knee, screaming in agony.

A burst of machine-gun fire came from the house. Two intruders fell over.

Red flashes came from the security post. The two standing intruders were hit and collapsed.

Red flashes came from the front of the house, four more wizards ran around the pathway.

Another burst of machine gun fire came from the house and stopped the first two.

Roland aimed an MP5 machine-gun and fired a burst. Two more intruders fell.

The front doors of the villa were broken in by a blast.

When the blast noise subsided, there were a few seconds of tension filled silence.

A burst of machine-gun fire came from the front of the house.

Then there was nothing but whimpering from the wounded.

Roland scanned the lawn and terrace. He spotted Graham and signalled to him to stay down.

Security wizards carrying wands walked from the security post and started scanning the grounds.

After twenty minutes, Roland walked to the lower terrace. “It’s clear now. The wards have been restored. The clean-up teams are here now.”

The machine-gun fire, and the pistol shots, and the explosion didn’t go un-noticed. 

The villa had been swarming with local police, and Ministère des Affaires Magiques de la France, and Pimlico Security. The first report was given to Louisa and Graham by Robert when the villa was secured. A Pimlico Security supervisor in Paris had been Imperioused by an unidentified wizard. He had given access to the villa to the kidnappers. The kidnapping attempt started immediately. There had been eighteen in the attack, the four flyers had been captured unharmed, six had been injured by gunshots and captured, four had been stunned and captured, two had been killed by gunshots, and two had been killed by combinations of stunning spells. Two Pimlico Security team members had been killed at the front gate. The Imperioused supervisor in Paris had been murdered.

The local police took charge of the intruders who had been wounded or killed by gun fire. Pimlico Security had hidden the rest until they were handed over to the Ministère des Affaires Magiques de la France. All the intruder’s wands had been confiscated. 

Graham and Louisa watched the sunrise; “I hope this doesn’t ruin our holidays here in the future.” 

Louisa turned to Graham; “Graham, as soon as every heart rate is back to normal, I’m coming back to finish this holiday.”

Louisa and Graham had been allowed to pack and had returned to Purbeck Square, guarded by a new security team. Roland and Robert stayed at the villa until the investigations were complete. The French Ministry Obliviators were busy for days.

At Purbeck Square, they were greeted by the news that Leo had disappeared at the reception. The aurors were investigating.


	29. Friends in Low Places

There were so many questions unanswered. How had the disappearance been done? What was the purpose? Why hadn’t there been any ransom demands? Where was Leo now? Where was Dr Zaitseva now? Daphne wasn’t getting any answers from official sources. She just had to try her unofficial friends.

House-elves kept out of sight if they could. In the oldest wizarding families, they were modern day slaves. They weren’t human, of course, and had many strange characteristics, which when added together meant that they wanted to serve a family. If the family was cruel and treated them harshly, that was bad but couldn’t be avoided.

The new Ministry was campaigning to make house-elves lives more endurable and give them rights and protection. But it was the house-elves themselves who said that they were only happy if they were servants. 

Daphne arrived at her great-aunt’s stately mansion in Norfolk. She was allowed into the grounds and the huge front door opened as she approached. The house-elf who bowed to Daphne as she entered smiled broadly as he closed the door behind her. “Miss Daphne, it is being so good to see you again after such a long time. Mistress is waiting for you in the upstairs sitting room.”

“Thank you, Pinky. How is Great-Aunt Ludmilla today?”

“She is happy in herself but complains about not being able to do what she once could be doing, Miss Daphne. She is one hundred and seventy-four on her last birthday.”

“I will take tea with Great-Aunt Ludmilla, and after that I need to ask you a few questions about other things.”

“Yes Miss Daphne, Pinky is always happy to be telling you what you need to know.”

Daphne was grilled mercilessly about her marriage prospects. The fact that she had no dowry was a matter of great concern. Daphne assured her Great-Aunt that anyone who would marry her for her dowry would be placed at the bottom of any list of suitors. Daphne knew very well that if Great-Aunt Ludmilla wanted Daphne to have a dowry then Great-Aunt Ludmilla could easily make the provision. Daphne knew when to talk and when to shut up.

When the ordeal was over Daphne invited herself into the huge kitchen attached to the rear of the house. Pinky and four other house-elves gave Daphne their undivided attention. The house-elf network was up to date with the strange goings on around Viscount Pimlico and the battle at the villa in France. It had only happened last night, but they already knew everything.

The reception for Leo was held in the Imperial College itself. Pinky told Daphne that the college was covered by a new outbreak of natural raw magic. No one in the Department of Mysteries knew why it was happening. 

The project Leo was supporting was investigating the evidence of magic showing up in muggle technology. While this was happening in London, there was a report of something happening in the USA. MACUSA had asked for any information about any occurrences of unregulated magic being performed.

Daphne decided to use her contacts with MACUSA in California to see if they knew anything at all. They owed her something after her last visit.

As for the disappearance, the reception room at the college had been investigated. The traces of magic were unmistakeable. There had been a portkey activated in the room. The fire alarms had been set off at 10 pm exactly, no-one had seen Leo and Dr Zaitseva disappear. The fire alarm confusion allowed whoever set off the activation to escape unless it was a timed activation. Pimlico security had not detected a wizard at the reception other than those known to them. This was not right. In Paris there was no trace of a wizard using an Imperious curse on an official whose every step was traced and recorded. Yet he was Imperioused and then murdered in a muggle way, using a knife.

It was impossible, but someone who was not magical was setting off magical incidents.

The muggle scientist, Anastasia Zaitseva, hadn’t been seen since the reception. What about her? Was she suspected? The house-elf network extended to nearly all the senior Ministry houses. There were many opinions being expressed about Dr Zaitseva. Harry Potter had allowed her to be involved. Harry had allowed Leo to attend the reception with assurances that it was safe. There were now serious doubts about Harry and the open way he worked with muggles.

Pinky trusted Daphne not to use the house-elf information in a way that would betray them. House-elves never revealed family secrets. Nothing that Daphne heard was strictly speaking a family secret, but Daphne couldn’t put anything in her column which could be traced to a house-elf. 

That didn’t mean that Daphne couldn’t launch her own investigation based on the news from her friends in low places.

The text message to Jane Goodman got an immediate reply, “Daphne, please come here as soon as possible. Call the MACUSA Co-operation Office in London. They will arrange a portkey for you.”

Three long portkey trips finished in the MACUSA California State office. Jane greeted Daphne, assessed her appearance, and took her to her hotel room to recover. Portkey travel was upsetting at the best of times. Daphne wasn’t throwing up but it was close.


	30. The Wizard Lord

The negotiations with Lecky were long and terrifying. It finally dawned on Fischer and Jessen that they belonged to Lecky and he wasn’t going to let them go. Jessen had a much easier time. He was used to obeying every order without question. Fischer fumed, muttered, and moaned about being a servant to the wrinkled little man.

The subject Lecky returned to time and again, was how his two new servants were going to earn their way to survival. If they didn’t bring in enough money Lecky would kill them without hesitation. He told them this and at the same time images of traditional wizard executions appeared in their minds. The professor and the technician both knew that Lecky was not joking.

The computer, the map, and the phones were taken by Lecky. He vanished them and told his servants they might get them back again if he was satisfied with their efforts. The task he gave them was to identify anyone rich who could be kidnapped and enslaved after signing over their wealth to Lecky. Jessen didn’t know anyone but bar flies like himself and the tiny handful of people like Fischer who worked in the grey area between legality and criminality.

The professor racked his mind for anyone rich enough to be made a victim. Finally, it came, Dr Anastasia Zaitseva. She had got a private sponsor for her new project, Leo Blake, The Viscount Pimlico. He knew exactly where Leo Blake would be and exactly the time he would be there. Fischer had just received an invitation to attend a reception for Viscount Pimlico. Fischer was invited as a matter of courtesy because of his previous connections with Anastasia Zaitseva. They didn’t expect him to show up. This was what Lecky needed to set up a snatch.

The plans were made with frightening speed and ruthlessness. Fischer had no doubt that Lecky would kill him in an instant if he failed to carry out Lecky’s instructions. The two stages of the plan were that Fischer had to present an American First Nations charm to Lord Pimlico. All that had to happen was that Pimlico was to have the charm on him at 10 pm. The charm was a portkey which would activate at 10 pm London time. Lord Pimlico would then be transported to the USA. Anything or any person he was holding on to at the time would be transported with him.

Wizards would be detected by the wizard security if they tried to enter the reception so wizards would not be used on the actual snatch. 

The criminals known to Lecky in Europe had another target. They wanted to snatch Lady Blake for ransom as well. The security around her was too much to break by normal attack. If a way could be found to get to the security supervisor in Paris, then the wards at the villa she was staying at could be broken. Jessen was to be sent to Paris. He would be set up to approach the supervisor and activate his enchanted cell phone to Imperious the supervisor. The supervisor would then be instructed to add the names of the villa snatchers to the villa wards to let them in. A local hired criminal would then dispose of the supervisor.

The villa snatch was a complete disaster. All the snatchers were killed or captured. Jessen returned to California by portkey the moment the Imperious curse was cast and the wards broken. He didn’t want to be caught in Paris with his killer accomplice.

The reception snatch worked. Leo Blake was now locked in a storeroom in a barn at the ranch. A second snatch was accidently made. Anastasia had been talking to Leo with her hand on his arm at 10 pm. She arrived in the USA with Leo Blake.

It was dark, a voice called out, “There’s another one, send her on after him.”

Two more portkey trips and Anastasia was put in a lock-up room next to Leo.

The castle had now become Lecky’s favourite lair. He was satisfied that it wasn’t going to revert to nothing or otherwise disappear, and that all the material used came from the same place. The stone had been quarried out from shafts and galleries dug under the castle itself. The space created allowed for many more dungeons than was in the original. The few pieces of timber came from nearby pine groves. Lecky had added a dis-illusionment charm so that the rare visitors to the ranch wouldn’t easily find the castle. Fischer and Jessen stayed in the bunk house.

“Someone will miss you soon, won’t they?” Jessen was hopeful, no one would miss him. “You’re a professor at a big university. Somebody knows you own this place. They will send someone out here to look for you.”

The cars would not start. They tried walking off the property when Lecky wasn’t around. They’d go to the boundary line and couldn’t move any further. The only thing they could do was turn around and trudge back to the old ranch buildings. 

“Maybe! The way things were going with the department committees, they might forget that I was supposed to turn up there sometimes.” Fischer was definitely going to need therapy after this, if he lived.

The prisoners in the barn were not co-operating. Lecky put his demands to Leo. Leo did not make any response. He was taken to the castle for Lecky to interrogate him. Lecky used every trick he could, but one thing he couldn’t do was break into Leo’s mind using Legilimency. Leo found that he was a fair Legilimens but nowhere as powerful as Daphne. Leo’s Occlumency stood the test. 

Lecky questioned Leo with increasing intensity to break his resolve. Leo concentrated his efforts to repel Lecky and found that he was able to reach Anastasia and block out any Legilimens attacks on her. The interrogation was exhausting, Lecky new that if he kept up the pressure, he could break down an isolated prisoner. After the first week the prisoners survived, just. 

The attacks were not continuous. Lecky had to leave frequently, sometimes for days at a time. This left only the two muggles around the place. They never came into the barn except to push basic food and drink through a hatch next to the door. The muggle guards were armed with assault rifles. No talking was allowed at any time, except to Lecky.


	31. Breakup

Relations between Ron and Harry were difficult, not just difficult, disastrous. Ron had arrested Draco Malfoy the instant he caught sight of him at Imperial College. The Minister himself had ordered the aurors to release Draco and return him to Imperial College. Draco was back at work in less than an hour.

“You had no evidence. Malfoy has not committed any crime. He has not performed any magic for more than five years. He does not have a wand. There is a full trace on him. He is a former Death Eater. The trace is a condition of his release. He knows that any magic he performs will be reported instantly and it will be on his record, even if he uses a wand to tie his shoelaces. To send Malfoy to Azkaban, we need to have evidence we can present at a trial. Even Malfoy will get a trial if we find anything on him.” Harry was facing a wildly angry Ron Weasley.

“The situation at this muggle college stinks. What is happening there must be dark magic. The fact that he is there must be enough to put him away. He must have found a way to do this and hid what he is doing from the Ministry. Harry, you’re being too soft on him. People are saying that openly now. You’re bringing muggles in the wizarding world, and you’re letting Malfoy run around and do whatever he wants.” Ron wasn’t just angry, he was red faced, screaming, and spitting out everything in a stream of anger.

“Ron, I have asked the Minister to put Draco under protective custody. That means house arrest in a safe place. He won’t be able to leave or do any magic. The Minister won’t do it. There is no evidence to prove anything against Malfoy and until there is, we can’t just arrest him. These rules were put in place when we first started work as aurors. You know that. I can’t defy the Minister, if I try, he will just stand me down and wait until I resign.”

“There is nothing you can say to change my mind about this, Harry. You’re wrong and I know it. Maybe you should leave the Ministry, if you don’t, I can’t help you.” Ron turned and left the room. Hermione turned away from Harry. “I’m sorry Harry. We won’t be coming back until you fix this.” 

She followed Ron out of the room and was gone.

The office and laboratory at Imperial College were thoroughly searched by aurors and muggle police. When Dr Zaitseva was reported missing, her son Peter was taken to his father’s flat. The aurors found traces of portkey activity which couldn’t be traced. There were no other signs of magical crime, and after a separate search, the muggle police found nothing suspicious. 

The lack of any indication about what happened to Leo and Anastasia was very unsettling. The disappearances were obviously the result of magic, but no wizards were present who could have been involved. The wands belonging to the security guards were examined, nothing was found. The portkeys were illegal and of course unregistered, there was no hint of where they had gone. Harry visited the office and the laboratory for one more search. Jonathan was still at work on the computer.

“What are you doing here Jonathan?”

“I’m working on the assignment that Dr Zaitseva gave me.”

“Can you tell me what it is? Remember I didn’t finish high school science.”

“That’s OK. It isn’t that complex. Dr Zaitseva wrote a logging system into the package which she developed for her last paper. Any system in the world that runs her package will generate a string of emails which show the exact state of the system including where it is.”

“A bunch of emails keep arriving from the USA. It looks like Professor Fischer is trying to get the package to run on his system in California.”

“Who is this Professor Fischer?” Harry realised that this where the unregulated magic happening in California was coming from.

“He was the professor at UC Berkley who was supposed to be reviewing Dr. Zaitsevas work. She had to send him a copy of everything she was doing and get his comments on it before she could publish. He just copied the whole paper and published it himself. It’s academic credit fraud. It happens all the time. This guy is shameless.”

“So, what can this show us?”

“The emails have the time and date and the location that the system has set in it when the package is run. That can be changed of course but it doesn’t look like they are aware of what it is doing, and they aren’t changing those settings. The package compares any changes made in the programme with the original. The emails have a list of these changes. These are quite interesting.”

“Are they improving the programme?”

“Not at all. The don’t understand what the system is doing. The changes are mainly in one line of comments.”

“What are comments? I know what comments are, usually it’s something talking across you when you are trying to explain something. Doh!”

“OK. Comments are notes programmers write to themselves explaining what they are doing in the programme. No one can remember every detail of what a big system does, so we all need reminders of what it is we are doing. Comments are plain text and are not included in the programme at run time.”

“Why are they interesting then?”

“It looks like the computers we are using have acquired a connection to an artificial intelligence. Dr Zaitseva has changed her assumptions to include the possibility of parallel universes with different physical rules intersecting so that in our universe another set of rules can be invoked. That is what makes magic. She is still working on how the detailed control happens. The system doesn’t do this away from this building. I have tried it other places and it doesn’t happen. Something in this locality is reading the programme when it runs, it sees a request to do something in the programme and does it. Computers themselves can’t do this. It is an external, massively powerful energy field which is just waiting to perform tasks assigned to it. Somehow the computer is being recognized as something authorized to give orders.”

“What orders are they giving in California?”

“That’s where it gets interesting. They asked for a full-sized crusader castle. Then they asked for a map showing all magical people within a fifty-mile radius. Then they asked for a mobile phone to be made into a magic wand.”

“What happened?”

“We can’t see what happened from here, but the programmes all finished and sent the logging emails.”

“Have you tried that here?” Harry was getting hopeful.

“I didn’t think making a kilometre-long stone building in the middle of Imperial College was a great idea, so I tried the map and the phone requests. These are the results.”

A folded map and a mobile phone were on the table next to the computer.

Harry unfolded the map and found his name at the centre, there were bunches of names where the Ministry, St Mungo’s and Diagon Alley should be. Jonathan picked up the phone and clicked on the Spells menu and handed it to Harry. Harry selected ‘Lumos’. The phone lit up thus like a wand would have.

“Nox!”

The light switched off. The phone was responding to verbal commands just like a wand. Harry felt quite sick. These muggles were breaking into his magical world with little effort. They were doing this in California where there was no contact with wizards at all.

“The emails show you the location of the computer in California. How accurate is it?”

“I’ve got the email relay servers and the system location there. I also have a dialogue running with the computer in California. They never switched it off and it is still responding to remote connections from the system I am running here. Dr Zaitseva was very suspicious about what Professor Fischer was going to do, so she put a back door in to snoop on what was actually going on. I am still working on this. I think I can take their system over, as long as they don’t switch it off.”

“Have you got all this on a portable computer?”

“Yes, I took it all home on the laptop.”

“Get a bag packed. You're coming with me to the USA.”


	32. Malfoy Manor

The entrance was just as grim and forbidding as ever. The wards opened for Draco, Astoria and Olivia, the Malfoy wards as well as the Ministry ones. All the protection was necessary, Lucius was still on probation and the family still needed extra protection from their numerous enemies.

The house-elf bowed the visitors into the reception room. Narcissa was genuinely welcoming. Olivia didn’t need any more than a Legilimens touch to be sure. 

“I can’t tell you how happy your proposal made me. The only person to be persuaded is, of course, Lucius. The latest episode with Draco and the aurors convinced me that the feud has to be finished.”

“Can I put something into the plan at this stage?” Astoria always commanded respect, particularly when everyone knew they needed help. 

“What we need is a transaction, something that will give Lucius something he wants, but he can only get it by giving us what we want. Now, what does Lucius want right now?”

“More firewhiskey.”

“More elf-wine.”

“More galleons.”

“They’re all good answers. Let’s analyse them. To get more firewhiskey Lucius needs what?”

“More galleons.”

“To get more elf-wine he needs what?”

“More galleons, the Malfoy house-elf doesn’t make elf-wine.” Narcissa was amused.

“The answer then is what?”

“More galleons!”

“How are we to do that, he won’t take a bribe, bribes from wizards can result in obligations which Lucius would be reluctant to burdened with.” Narcissa spoke carefully.

Olivia took over. “There is a business proposal which could be put to him. The Malfoy estate has five thousand hectares of wizarding land which can be used to grow magical crops for potions and at present no one is working that land.”

“That’s right, how did you know about that?” Narcissa was clearly surprised by the revelation of Malfoy family insider knowledge.

“Since we revived Greengrass Potions we have been setting up contracts with wizard farmers including the ones who used to rent Malfoy estate lands. They are all renting land from other owners or have been able to buy their own magical titles to other farms.” Olivia paused as if waiting for more comments, then carried on.

“We haven’t found anyone working on the Malfoy estate. They haven’t even asked for a new lease. The Malfoy estate, I’m afraid, has a terrible reputation for raising rents and then refusing to pay to protect and improve the land.”

“That was Lucius, he kept all dealings between him and the tenants secret. I knew he was running the estate into the ground. There was nothing I could do. The authority over the estate is all with Lucius.” Narcissa was letting a lot of bitterness come into her normally cool voice.

“We, by we, I mean Greengrass Potions, have a deal to offer Lucius. We have a wizard farmer who could revive the Malfoy estate and get it to start earning galleons for you. The rents will not be high, the farmer will protect and improve the land himself so that the Malfoy estate will not have to pay anything. Lucius will get a steady income. All he has to do is find the start of the Malfoy-Weasley feud and remove the Malfoy side of the problem.”

Narcissa went to collect Lucius from his hiding place. It took a while but eventually a haggard and worn Lucius shambled into the room. He collapsed into his usual chair. “Olivia, Astoria, and even my loyal son Draco. How are you Draco?”

“I am well father. You look ill.”

“Thank you, Draco, but I already know that. Azkaban isn’t what it used to be, at least I have survived, and I still own my own mind. What have I done to deserve the pleasure of your company?”

“I want to discuss the future of our family in the wizarding world. I have a new life working at Imperial College and I still want to be able to walk down Diagon Alley without being arrested. The Weasleys will not leave me alone. I need this feud to stop, as soon as possible. I need you to search through the family journals, find whatever started the feud. The war is over for most wizards but not for me. You have to lift the curse our ancestors made to start the feud. You have to stop the Malfoy side of the feud so that I have a chance of a decent life.”

The infamous Lucius Malfoy sneer was back. “This is all about you is it? You don’t have the stomach for dealing with inferior muggle lovers like the Weasleys, so you want me to get you out of it. You are a muggle lover yourself now, living as a muggle, rejecting every principle that the Malfoy family has kept for centuries. Why should I accommodate you? Tell me that Draco, why should I do anything? What’s in it for me?”

Olivia stood, walked to Lucius’ chair, and handed him a sheet of parchment. “This, Lucius, is a reason why you should. It is a magical lease agreement for your potions fields, the farmer who is interested in taking the lease is going to pay you a set fee for three years with an option for a further three. The Malfoy estate will not be required to invest in any improvements. The farmer will do it all himself. The farmer will not agree to the arrangement unless Greengrass Potions agrees with all the legal and magical constraints. There is already a supply agreement in place between us. The farmer is already supplying us from other farms he manages.”

Olivia returned to her seat. “Lucius, you will have to lift the curse, otherwise there will be no lease and no money for you.”

The rage flared in the pale face. “I will not agree to this! Get out! Get out! All of you!”

“That was excellent.” Narcissa whispered to the conspirators as they went out of the front door. “He will agree to it within a week.”


	33. The Plan

The investigation in France had been completed. Roland and Robert would have to return for an inquest. The authorities were very confused about the details of the attack. The forensic investigators insisted that there were more intruders who had not been accounted for. The conclusion, which satisfied no-one, was that some intruders evaded capture and escaped. 

An emergency conference was called at 15 Purbeck Square. Harry waited at the kitchen table until till everyone was seated. Present was Lady Blake, Graham Proud, Roland, Robert, John, Mary, Jonathan from Dr Zaitseva’s laboratory, and the Pimlico Security London Supervisor, who never revealed his proper name. “Just call me Super” was the best they got.

Harry started talking. “I have got something to tell you about Leo.”

“At last, is he alive?” Louisa was shaking.

“Yes, he is.”

“Oh! Thank God! Where is he?”

“He is being held prisoner by a wizard lord in the USA.”

“If we know this, can’t the police over there rescue him?”

“No Graham, if we involved the police at this stage, they would not find anything. The wizard lord can hide the place from outsiders. He has also been able to keep the wizard authorities out of his realm. He is a First Nation Medicine Man; he calls himself a Protector. His land is like a little kingdom, he has absolute authority, he doesn’t have to take any notice of MACUSA.”

“If this place is so secret, how do you know about it?”

“This is where Dr Zaitseva and Jonathan have saved us. The computer system which is at the centre of the uncontrolled magic happening at Imperial College, has been replicated in California. Dr Zaitseva had to send a copy of her system to Professor Fischer in California. He has installed the system and has been running it. He has also done something which has given us our chance. He has moved the system into the First Nation Protector’s land. We guess that he didn’t know that he was doing this.”

“So, what happened?”, The security supervisor was getting impatient.

“The Protector has control of a flow of natural raw magic in his land to give him the power needed to keep MACUSA out. When the computer package started it did a similar thing to the system in Imperial College, it started talking to the flow of raw magic which then did whatever it was asked to do.”

“The uncontrolled magic that MACUSA was concerned about.”

“Yes, and that is giving us our chance.”

“What can we do?” The super was looking worried now.

“Jonathan has taken control of the computer over there. The programmes Dr Zaitseva put together have back doors which the systems on different computers use to share information. This mechanism also gives the original system, made by Dr Zaitseva, control over the other systems. We can command the system in California to perform magic tasks without anyone there being aware of it. It is like having a powerful wizard ready to do whatever we ask it to.”

“But, what can we do?”

“We can break into the Protector’s kingdom. We asked the natural magic flow if it will stop if we ask it to through the computer. It replied that it would.”

“You can communicate with it?”

“Yes, in a simple way. We have done that already with the raw magic flow that broke out in Imperial College. Jonathan asked it to stop and it stopped. The computer that we were using to perform magic here just stopped performing magic when we asked raw magic flow to stop.”

“So, how are we controlling the computer over there?”

“The control is not done by magic. It is done by everyday computer technology.” Jonathan was looking worried. “We are able to do this and break into the Protectors land as long as he is not aware of what we are doing. We can assume that as soon as the flow stops, he will be aware of it. The wizard law enforcement will have to be ready at the boundary to move in as soon as the barrier goes down. I have no idea if the raw magic flow will start again if the Protector commands it, we can ask it not to start for him, but we don’t know if that will work.”

“We have to be there ready to act as soon as the barrier comes down. Which brings us to the reason why I am telling this group about this.” Harry waited for any comments.

The lack of understanding around the table was obvious.

“OK, what is it?” Graham was not used to such long and involved scene setting.

“You are not wizards and witches, apart from the security super and me. This means that the Protector will not see you as a threat when you turn up at the place where Leo and Dr Zaitseva are being held. The suggestion is that you will all play at being lost tourists. Of course, you will be armed and have the latest details of the layout of the place. Your job will be to snatch Leo and Anastasia back. The super and I will go after the Protector.”

“What about MACUSA, can’t they do that?”

“Yes, but I don’t have official support for this job. The Minister is under a lot of pressure to sack me. He can’t send out aurors out to do this or get MACUSA involved. This plan involves too many muggles for the traditional Ministry wizards. Nobody has another plan, so I have taken leave and we have to use whatever resources this group can muster.”

“Can we get help from MACUSA anyway? You know, ask them for help once we are there?” The super was not happy.

“We can see what works out once we are there. There is probably a team of MACUSA aurors at the border waiting for a chance to get in. They have wanted to get the Protector arrested for many years.”

“How are we getting there? I assume this has to be done today.” John was ready to go.

“We won’t use magical transport, too much official oversight. The super has arranged for a Pimlico Air Freight plane to take us to the nearest airport. We will all be listed as company employees. I have visas ready for you all. I’m still allowed to do magic. Pack a bag, be ready to go to the freight depot in an hour.”

“Why are you taking me?” Louisa asked.

“Two car-loads of men is suspicious. At least one lady in each car will cut the suspicion a bit.”

“Good, my bag is ready. I’ve been ready to go since they snatched Leo.”


	34. Class Reunion

The town near the hospital was exactly the same. Daphne had moved from the hotel into her room in the MACUSA rented house. She had not been told anything about why MACUSA wanted her back here.

“I’m glad you could come Daphne. What do you know about Thomas Lecky?” Jane Goodman was friendly but tense.

“I don’t know any person with that name.”

“OK, second question, what do you know about the uncontrolled magic incidents which have been happening here?”

“Only that there seemed to be similar incidents happening in London. Harry Potter has a team investigating, but they haven’t found anything. They really haven’t found anything; I would know if they were lying to me.”

“That’s why we asked you back here. You are the most powerful Legilimens we have seen, and you’re someone we can trust. We want you to do what you did on your last visit. Hang around town and look for anyone who knows the name Thomas Lecky. When you find them, message me straight away. We aren’t going to risk Lecky getting any warning. Also, anyone connected with Lecky is likely to be a proper dark wizard.”

The last time, Daphne’s happy hunting ground was the hospital workers bar. As she entered and approached the bar, she counted two hits. One was a young woman who knew Thomas Lecky. The next was young woman who Daphne knew by sight. They were the same woman, who was, Mariette Edgecombe. The text message to Jane was answered quickly. Daphne sat at the bar, within a minute Jane and Colin Patterson walked in the door. Daphne beckoned Jane to the bar. “She is sitting at the corner table, and I know who she is. She is Mariette Edgecombe. She was in my year at Hogwarts. Let me speak to her first, I assume we are looking for what the connection is with Lecky?” Jane nodded, Daphne got up and strolled to the corner table.

The table was bare, with one empty glass sitting in front of Mariette. “Hello stranger, what the hell are you doing here?”

It took a few seconds for recognition to set in. “Daphne Greengrass, you frightened me. Like you always used to do.”

“Sorry about that, Hogwarts wasn’t a great place for some of us was it. Do you mind if I sit down?”

“Sure, sit, to what do I owe this honour?”

“I don’t know about honour; you know that I write for The Daily Prophet.”

“No, I didn’t know that. You write under another name, don’t you?”

“Yep. I look for any story I can to make life uncomfortable for the fat cats who made money during the war while some of us suffered.”

There was an awkward silence. “Mariette, I have always wanted to say that I’m sorry for what happened with the boils and the scars on your face. They never really healed, did they?”

“No, I live here now, most witches here never heard the details about what happened. That seems to be enough to let people not see the pattern. But, of course, I still see it.”

“You know that I wasn’t in the Gryffindor Golden Trio admirers club at Hogwarts. Now I work with them, but I have to stay clear of the Weasleys. Let me tell you what I am doing here. I am looking for Leo Blake, The Viscount Pimlico. Every reporter in the wizarding world wants to get the story on what happened to him. I have a tip-off that Thomas Lecky has something to do with the kidnapping.”

“Yes, that sounds like him. Leo Blake is probably the biggest target he has ever had. He has kidnapped many victims before. MACUSA know all about him. I know just enough to stay away from him. That didn’t seem to worry those two muggles though.”

“Which two muggles?” Daphne was sure that no-one had said anything about muggles.

“One of them found me right here in this bar a couple of days before the kidnapping. They needed a witch to advise them about magic. That was weird. I told them that MACUSA would be hot on their trail for doing what they were doing. They had set up their computer in Thomas Lecky’s country and it started channelling magic from the raw magic flow. They made a full-size replica of a Crusader castle, a map showing the live location of all magical people within fifty miles, and they turned their cell phones into wands. I warned them about Lecky, but I was more concerned about saving my neck and I got out of there.”

“What are their names, and where are they now?” Daphne had heard more than enough.

“Professor Fischer and Freddy Jessen are still at Fischer’s muggle property, the Indian River Ranch. Fischer owns the muggle title, but it’s in Lecky’s country. Lecky ignores his muggle landowners, they can’t hurt him, but he will hurt them if he wants to.”

“Thanks Mariette. I’ll send you a potion from my mother’s private stock. It’ll help with the scars. Bye.”

Daphne stood up and left the bar. “Did you hear all of that?”

“Yes, we picked it up with our long ears.” Jane showed Daphne an earpiece with a long extension.

“That looks like a Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes product.”

The aurors and Daphne moved off along the street.

“Hello Daphne, was that Mariette Edgecombe you were talking to in the bar?” 

Harry Potter and a tall tough looking wizard were standing in front of them.

“Harry! What is this?”

“A happy accident, possibly, although calling it an accident is a bit much.”

“Harry, this is Jane Goodman and Colin Patterson, they’re aurors from MACUSA.”

“Great, can we meet somewhere and talk about the situation?” Harry smiled happily at the aurors. They didn’t smile back.

Harry was still acting as though he was on holiday. “We are all here for the same thing, we are going to get Leo Blake back and shut down Thomas Lecky.”

“Do you mind if we bring Marietta with us?” Harry still had his maddening smiley face on.

“Why Harry? She’s not that happy with anyone knowing she’s here.” Daphne was puzzled at this request.

“I’d like to have her where someone can watch her. The last time you were here, she accidently nearly got you killed. I also think that Mariette could get involved and help us, if we give her a chance.”

The teams met together in the MACUSA house. Jane Goodman was not impressed with having any nomaj involved.

“Jane, they are already deeply involved. Jonathan and Anastasia Zaitseva are finding entrances into the magical universe without any magical help at all. We are certain that the two muggles Lecky has at the ranch have done the same thing.” Jane went from angry to appalled. Harry gave a short version of what had been done in London and what the situation was at the Indian River Ranch.

“You mean to tell me that these people have done this with no wizards or witches involved?”

“None at all, the Ministry in London is in full denial right now. The majority opinion is that this is a plot involving dark magic that has been hatched by former Death Eaters. The problem with that is that there is no evidence of any plot.” Harry was now getting angry.

“It has gone to the extent that I have had to take leave, the investigation I was running is now cancelled. The Ministry aurors have orders now to obliviate anyone who knows anything about it. They have no intention of finding out what the truth is. The people I have brought over are committed to getting Leo back. The Ministry seems to be willing to write him off. We have to move against Lecky tonight. There is no time to wait for reinforcements. The situation with Lecky and those muggles is too dangerous to wait any longer.”

“What is Ginny doing now Harry?” Daphne was shaken by this breakdown in trust.

“I have asked her to stay with her parents and keep them out it as much as she can. She is very conflicted. The war, and ancient magical feuds can’t be shrugged off. The best that I can hope for is that the Weasley clan will stay out it until we get a result.”

“What proof do you have for any of this?” Colin Patterson asked the sensible auror’s question.

“Mariette has been to the ranch and seen the magically made objects. She has seen the map Fischer and Jessen made which shows all nearby magical people. If they look at it right now, they will see all of us wizards and witches, but not the muggles. This is why I want them involved. My revised plan is to have two cars of muggles drive into the ranch, acting the part of lost tourists. Lecky usually ignores muggles so at the start they should be safe enough. John, Mary, Roland, Robert, Louisa, and Graham have full length hex proof outfits. They are also carrying firearms which have been charmed to cut through all known wards protecting wizards. This gear was well and truly proved at the attempted kidnapping in France. Roland and Robert gave those kidnapper wizards an awful shock. Only Louisa has not had military or police firearms training, I understand that she has been getting personal tuition from Graham in her own target practice range at Purbeck Square.”

“Why, what can they do?” Jane still did not look happy.

“They have to get as close as possible to where Leo and Anastasia are being held. When they are in position, we will shut down the raw magic flow.”

“Hold on, you can control it.” Jane looked as though she did not believe it.

“Yes, Jonathan shut down the flow in London by asking it to. It shut down, and the computer stopped being magical. Jonathan did this using the computer and no other magical device. Once it is shut down there is no way we know of to start it up again.”

“All these years, Lecky has been able to thumb his nose at us and a nomaj machine could have shut him down.” Colin was more than surprised.

“We have to time this closely. As soon as the wards against MACUSA are down you can go after Lecky. We have our own map of his country provided by the ranch computer. It shows Lecky and his wizard gang. Lecky keeps them away from the ranch. He is the only one we have seen go there.”

“How many are there?”

“There are no more than four. It looks like they sometimes leave his country, but Lecky never does.”

“We have six aurors ready to move in, can we all get copies of this map.” Harry used his wand to make copies of the map, all charmed to work the same. Colin marvelled at the map. “We could use these everywhere. I hope you can give us the spells to make them.”

“Professor Flitwick is decoding that right now. The original was made up by the raw magic flow after being asked to by the computer.” 

“I want Daphne and Mariette to collect the prisoners. It will be safer to have them apparated or ported out of there if there is any resistance.” 

Harry unfolded a new map; “Daphne, in this detailed map of the ranch, you can see the room where Leo is. I want you to apparate in there, take Leo and apparate him straight back here. Mariette, I want you to apparate into the room next to Leo, Anastasia is in there. She is a muggle so you can’t safely apparate her out. I have made this portkey that you can take with you. It will activate as soon as you arrive. Just grab Anastasia and you will both be ported back here.”

“The outside team will keep the two muggles busy. You will try to get them both out of the building where they are staying. They have both been seen carrying guns. I have no idea if they will use them or not. You will have to play it by ear. If Lecky shows up, dive for cover and try to keep him busy until MACUSA come to take him. 

“This isn’t what we usually do for a class reunion, Daphne, Mariette. Neither of you have had an easy time at school or since then. I can’t fix that. But I hope things go better for you both from now on, just keep your heads down if the curses start flying. I don’t want to have to explain to your parents if you don’t come home.” The teams looked at Harry, if there was any doubt about his history, it was suddenly gone. No one questioned him. They all started preparing to go into action.


	35. Cold Winds

The days were long and empty, the nights lasted forever. Jessen longed for release from the nightmare. He had been taken to Paris by two threatening wizards, they used three portkey trips. Each trip ended with Jessen throwing up. He hated portkey travel. They had met a local criminal who didn’t speak English. The local man took his instructions from one of the wizards. Jessen had been told to wait in the street with the local man standing right behind him, his knife ready to finish Jessen off if he failed to obey. The two wizards looked on from opposite street corners.

When an ordinary looking man hurried down the street, one of the wizards signalled Jessen with light from his wand. Jessen pointed his phone at the hurrying man and pressed the ‘Imperio’ spell name on the list in his phone. The hurrying man stopped and waited. Jessen gave the cursed man a roll of parchment and said. “This is a list of wizards to be given access to all Pimlico protected places in France. Put the access in place now.”

The man nodded, drew his wand, touched the scroll with it and mumbled a spell. The scroll glowed blue then burst into flame. The criminal grabbed the Imperioused man and led him away. The wizards watching left their posts, ran to Jessen, grabbed him and then the portkey travel began again.

He didn’t know what it was about. Lecky visited Fischer and Jessen hours later. Lecky interrogated them both by some sort of mind reading. They had no choice. They couldn’t resist the unspoken demands to reveal who they had told about the job he was given. Finally, Lecky seemed to give up and left.

The prisoners were getting weaker. They were being subjected to a slow process of breaking their will. Isolation, sensory deprivation, no hint as to what time of day it was, which day it was and the constant questioning. 

They were slaves. Fischer finally admitted to himself that he was a slave, with no hope of release. They tried laying down and refusing to do the tasks they had been given. Lecky pointed his wand at them, Fischer didn’t remember what happened next. The tasks were finished but he suffered, his legs were covered with cuts and bruises. Lecky had made him walk around as if blindfolded, bumping into everything around the ranch like a zombie.

Jessen was made to cook for the four prisoners: the two in the cells and the two outside of them. The night dragged on. Jessen took the first patrol. Lecky ordered them to patrol the buildings through the night. There was no obvious reason why they should, maybe it was a test. At least it saved Fischer from having to listen to Jessen crack his knuckles and suck his teeth. 

The patrol changeover should have happened by now. “Fischer! Fischer! Come outside now!”

At last, but Fischer wasn’t going come when Jessen called. “You come in here first. I’m not ready.”

The was a short silence. “Fischer! Get out here now!”

No response was the appropriate response to that.

The door whipped open, slammed back against the wall, and stuck there as though it was nailed in place. A powerful gust of wind blasted through the door. Shredded dry grass blew in and around the room like a whirlwind. It was summer. The wind was freezing cold.

“Fischer! Out here! Right now!”

This was magic. Lecky was doing this to have his distorted fun with them. Fischer picked up his assault rifle, looped the strap over his shoulder, pointed the muzzle down in the approved manner. He then paced to the door and looked out. He couldn’t see anyone. He walked out into the dusty patch in front of the bunkhouse. There was a sharp crack to his right. Lecky was standing there; he was pointing his wand straight at Fischer.

“What did you do? How did you stop it?” Lecky was foaming at the mouth.

“Stop what? What are you talking about?” Fischer was getting worried about Lecky’s quivering wand.

“My country! My kingdom is gone! Bring it back! Now!”

More sharp cracks came from behind the bunkhouse. Lecky spun around and fired a spell at someone behind him. The spell was deflected away. The person was wearing a long coat. Whoever it was dived behind the corner of the bunkhouse. 

“Lecky! Surrender now, you don’t have a chance.” The voice wasn’t American. Lecky fired another spell into the dark. There was a short burst of machine-gun fire. Lecky crumpled to the ground.

“Stop! Stop! I surrender!” Fischer had never been shot at in his life. He didn’t intend to find out what it was like. He dropped the rifle and put both his hands up as high as he could.

A growling sound came from Lecky. He was still alive. He pointed his wand at Fischer and was muttering a long spell. Fischer was enveloped in a perfect sphere like shining glass. Then with a heavy thud the sphere with Fischer in it disappeared.

A spell was cast from the corner of the bunkhouse. “Expelliarmus!”

The wand Lecky was holding spun away to the wizard.

“Stupefy!” Lecky rolled over and didn’t move again.

Jane Goodman approached Lecky. She checked his vital signs. She stood up and shook her head.

The Pimlico super stepped out of the bunkhouse door and raised his wand. Brilliant white light flooded the ranch buildings. He called out, “Clear!”

The outside teams approached the bunkhouse. The ‘clear’ call meant that the captives had been secured and taken to the MACUSA house and all the hostiles had been captured.

“How did you capture the other guard?” Harry arrived with two stunned captives floating in front of him.

“We drove up the track and stopped where we planned to. The one named Jessen spotted us from long way off. He threw his rifle away and ran up to us. He was begging us to take him away. Louisa kept her pistol on him while we approached the buildings. We got Jessen to call out to Fischer to get him out of the bunkhouse.” Graham was looking at Lecky. “Is he a goner?”

“Yes, the spell might have finished him off, but the gunshot wounds would have been fatal in another minute.” Jane was matter of fact but not happy.

“What happened to Fischer?” That came from Jessen. He had sat down in the dust and was now looking shaky again.

“I don’t know, do you have any idea Harry?” Jane asked.

“None at all, I don’t know the spell he cast. Jane has got Lecky’s wand. MACUSA can extract all the spells he cast with it. That should give us an indication of what Lecky did.”

“How is Leo and Dr Zaitseva?” Louisa was looking concerned.

“Daphne and Mariette got them both back to the house. That’s all we know. MACUSA will tidy up here and look after Jessen. I will apparate to the house now. The outside teams can drive back.” Harry handed over his prisoners to a MACUSA agent.

“I will be arriving at the house soon. I have to report to my supervisor.” Jane still didn’t look happy.

It was past midnight before everyone was back to the house. Leo and Anastasia had washed and dressed in clean clothes. A plain meal was prepared for them and a sip of potion from a bottle with a Greengrass Potions label restored their sense of being human.

“We will have a full debrief after Leo and Anastasia have had some sleep. If you have any questions that can’t wait, we’ll try to answer them now.” Harry was elated that the plan had worked with only one or two life threatening risks being taken.

“When we arrived there and gave the signal that we were ready, there was a huge gust a wind from somewhere. It came across the fields and picked up tons of dry grass and blew right across the ranch buildings. It was freezing cold. I saw the bunkhouse door whip open and a load of grass rushed in. What was that?” Roland was at last looking more relaxed.

“I can only guess at this. That was the moment that the natural flow of magic shut itself down at Jonathans request. Why it did the gust of cold wind, I don’t know, but it might have been done to get Fischer frightened and out of the bunkhouse, which is what we wanted.” Harry shrugged.

The Pimlico super spoke up. “I’m going to the Pimlico Security office in San Francisco right now. I will arrange for a flight back to the U.K. with all the right documentation for muggle flights. I will let you know when it will be ready, maybe tomorrow night.”

Another Greengrass Potions bottle came out of Daphne’s travel bag. Yet another not fully legal Undetectable Extension Charm allowed Daphne to carry a useful selection of potions with her. Leo and Anastasia were given a sleeping draft. They were put to bed to sleep for at least eight hours. The rest of the teams crashed on mattresses and hammocks conjured around the house. 

Pimlico Air Freight had a cargo DC10 waiting at San Francisco International. The teams would be accommodated in the crew ferrying section which had twelve seats and a galley. The de-briefing covered every detail of the plan, which parts worked, and which didn’t. It came out that John had fired the burst with his Heckler & Koch MP5 that had hit Lecky. 

“I’m sorry you had to do that, John.” Jane Goodman was genuinely concerned for the team’s welfare. “Aurors should have been there to deal with Lecky, we didn’t get to him in time.”

“Oh, don’t worry about me, I used to do this sort of thing for a living.”

“What!” Jane was genuinely stunned.

“I had more than twenty years in the Royal Marine Commandos. We did all sorts of jobs like this, drug chiefs, terrorists, kidnappers, crime gang bosses. They loved to find little places that were out of reach of official law enforcement and then they set themselves up as though they were kings in their own little country. Sounds familiar doesn’t it. One night, a platoon of Commandos arrives, we do our job, no more king. Of course, none of that ever got into the popular press.”

“It’s not my business, I won’t be offended if you tell me to shut-up.”

“Please Robert, tell us what you are thinking.” Harry waited for Robert to speak.

“Most of us here have good reasons to be concerned for the future. Apart from Dr Zaitseva and Jonathan, we are wizards and witches, or we have family who are in the magical world. The business here and in London shows just how easy it would be for anyone who stumbles on the secret to break into the magical world. If Lecky had taken more notice of it, he could have equipped an army of muggle criminals with magical weapons. It would be disastrous for muggle and magical.”

“I am very much aware of that Robert. I also know that in the U.K., I will have a problem convincing the Ministry and the Wizengamot of that.” Harry had everyone’s attention.

“Now I know that in the past, if any muggle found out about magic, they were Obliviated straight away. The situation has, I think, changed. We need Dr Zaitseva and Jonathan. We need them to work out what is happening, and how to get control as quick as we can to stop anything breaking loose again.”

“Here in the USA the attitude is about the same. I have asked to meet with our Directors to explain exactly what Harry has been saying. We can’t be as isolated as we were; we would just be blind-sided again.” Jane was not happy again. She looked at Colin Patterson, who glanced at Anastasia. 

“I have been more involved with the Directors in the past. I think we should put it to the Directors that they should hear from Anastasia what she thinks has happened and how easy it would be for any other nomaj, in any other part of the world, to do the same.” Colin turned to Anastasia, “Would you be willing to do that?”

“I think so, I will write down what I have been observing and put it in as much plain English as I can. You are right, we need to work together on this. It won’t need a lot of people, two in the U.K., maybe two more here, perhaps in the University of California at Berkeley, now that Fischer has been sent away somewhere, for a long time, I hope.”


	36. Loose Ends

The house was crowded with people who had just found a new togetherness. The kidnapping victims had been saved. No one was had been killed. Curses had been flying around the ranch, but no-one had been even scratched. Daphne had done her part without a hitch.

She processed how it had happened.

The apparation into the storeroom was easy. Nothing blocked her arrival.

The storeroom was black, there was no light at all. 

“Lumos!”

He was lying in a corner, curled up. His head came up at the sound of the disapparation and the light from her wand. Daphne went to Leo, slid her arm under his until she had her elbow under his shoulder. She hauled Leo up, he didn’t resist. The side-along-apparation worked. The anti-apparation jinxes had all been washed away when the natural magic flow stopped.

They disapparated at the back door of the house. Leo stumbled against the door frame. He had to be half-carried into the house. He was a mess. Daphne got him into the bathroom. He slid down onto the floor. 

“Are you going to throw-up?”

“No, thank-you.”

She started wiping his face and arms with a wet face washer.

“Oh! Thanks! That’s lovely.”

Mariette came to the door; “How is he?”

“He is weak, dis-oriented, and he stinks like an open latrine.”

“Do I? I can’t smell anything.”

“How is she?”

“Not so bad, she is having a shower in the ensuite now.”

“What a good idea.” Daphne started unbuttoning his shirt.

“Hey! Wait a minute, I can do that myself.” Leo struggled to sit up.

“OK. Mister modesty.” Mariette and Daphne laughed out loud.

“I will run a bath. You can sit on the side, undress, and get yourself into it. If I hear you fall over, I will come and help. OK.”

“OK.”

The stress was starting to lift of her shoulders. It was like weights being dropped, one by one. Daphne never admitted it to anyone. Leo never left her thoughts for long. When the news of his disappearance came out, she feared the worst. She was certain that he was alive but a long way off. She didn’t want to think of life without him. 

She had tried to keep away after she felt the attraction growing. The old wizarding feuds would have forced a break of the connection between Leo and the Weasleys. Harry would have to stay in the Weasley clan and virtually cast Leo out. She didn’t want to be responsible for that. She also didn’t want to be included in another family feud, the Greengrass clan already had plenty of their own. The marriage between Astoria and Draco meant that nothing could be just patched up. 

The bathroom door opened; Daphne placed a bag just inside the door. “Here are some clean things for you to put on. When you are finished, I will take your old clothes outside and burn them.”

“Fine. Wonderful. Thank-you.”

Other wizards came and went with news and clean-up errands. 

Harry arrived. “We have one muggle guard in custody. The main one, Fischer, was sent away somewhere by Lecky before we could stop him. Lecky is now dead. He had no intention of surrendering. We were delayed by Lecky’s other gang members who showed up and tried to fight us around the ranch. Without the wards set up by the magic flow they couldn’t stop us. They are all in MACUSA custody.”

“Where is Leo?” Harry looked a lot more relaxed.

“In the bath. I’m sure his lordship won’t mind you going in to talk to him.” Daphne smiled gently.

Harry opened the bathroom door. “Hiya Leo, how are you?”

“Great now. I can feel my legs again. I can’t tell you how happy I am to see you all. I heard what you told the ladies.”

Harry leaned against the door. “This is just for your information. The gang we captured here are all singing like little birdies. They are happy to be out from under Lecky’s control. I don’t have any details, but we now have names for the infiltrators who set up the kidnapping, and the capture and murder of the Pimlico Security Supervisor in Paris. Did anyone tell you about that?”

“No, I haven’t heard anything.” Leo was worried.

“Your mother is fine, she and Graham came here with us, she was with the outside team who got Fischer and Jessen out of the way.” Leo was having trouble taking this in.

“Leo, there was a major attempt to kidnap your mother, at the same time that you were snatched. Graham kept her safe while the security team fought them off. Roland and Robert did a first-class job. I’m afraid that two Pimlico Security staff were killed at the villa, as well as the Supervisor in Paris.”

“Why would anyone want to work for my security if they face risks like this?” Leo was down again.

“They do it for their own reasons, it’s more than working for the pay. They are in a kind of bond, team spirit and all that. The London Supervisor insisted on coming with us. The team won’t rest until the low life who harmed them are caught and punished.” 

“Let me think for a while, thank-you Harry.”

When Harry closed the door, he turned to face Daphne. She was leaning on the wall, listening to the conversation. Her arms were folded, she looked grim. 

“I’m sorry, Daphne.” Daphne nodded and looked down.


	37. Greengrass California

The team was packing ready to leave for the international cargo terminal. Mariette was staying. The small town was her home now. As she moved to the door Daphne caught up with her. 

“Mariette, can I talk to you about something.”

“Sure Daphne, just don’t try to get me to go back to the U.K. I am quite happy here.”

“That’s great, because what I’m going to say depends on you staying here.”

“What’s this about, Daphne?”

“The natural magic flow, it has been here for a long time, more than a thousand years. It has shut down now, but it has left residual magic in the land, the soil, everywhere in Lecky’s old kingdom.”

“Yes, that sounds right.” Mariette was interested.

“The magical ownership has reverted to the federation of First Nations in the USA. That’s not their real name, it isn’t polite for us foreigners to put our nose into the First Nations business. My mum, the owner and manager of Greengrass Potions, would love to get supply contracts with wizard farmers willing to work on that land. Anyone who works the land properly will do very well.”

“I don’t know that much about farming.” Mariette wasn’t sure about this.

“What Mum needs is someone she can trust, who will negotiate with the local people, they will all be First Nations. You don’t have to know that much about farming, you will pick that up quickly anyway. Once the contracts start to pay, Greengrass Potions and Greengrass Botanicals will set up California branches, based here. I want you to consider being our representative in California.”

“Wow, that’s a whole lot different to the muggle jobs I’ve been doing here.”

“Mariette, the training you got at Hogwarts will really start to pay off if you accept.”

“Doesn’t this have to go through your mother.”

“Don’t worry, Mum and I are on the same page about most things.”

The DC10 cruised north-east, the Great Circle path would take them to Hudson Bay, across the Greenland Strait, then southern Greenland, across the North Atlantic, then into Gatwick from the north-west. Daphne had been kept up to date by her mother on the Malfoy project. So far there was no progress. She was gradually sliding into depression as each hour passed and the U.K. got closer. Daphne was never depressed. The signs of a happy future life were not good.

Daphne wrote random notes filled with details of each day’s drama. She could write about twenty columns covering the last week alone. All she had to do was find a reason to do it.

Maybe California would be good for Daphne as well. That Leo Blake person was so upsetting. She could do without him looking in her direction every chance he got. Los Angeles, that had a promising sound to it. It had some good things to consider, mainly it was a long way from London. There was a lot happening there in the muggle and magical world. The wizard papers and periodicals over there could always use new material.


	38. The Ministry Calls

Harry was dropped off at 12 Grimauld Place. Kreacher opened the door as Harry reached the top step. 

“Master! Kreacher has been frightened for you. You look tired. Come to the kitchen. Kreacher will feed you.”

“Thank-you Kreacher. That will be good.” Harry didn’t want to argue with anyone.

“Are there any messages?”

“Many Master. Minister Shacklebolt has sent many owls. There are many others.”

Harry sent a message by owl to The Burrow saying that he was home and Leo was safe.

The house was empty apart from Kreacher. 

There was food from the galley during the flight. Like most airline food, it didn’t satisfy like a proper meal should. House-elf cooking was plain, old-fashioned, and satisfying. Harry loved it.

Harry had a long, hot bath. He should be delighted. The mission was completely successful, there were no more deaths, the potential disaster had been averted. He was hollow. There was no joy, no sense of achieving anything. Ginny had not come home.

The messages from Kingsley were in one pile on the desk in the library. They were all variations on the one theme; ‘Where are you?’; ‘What are you doing?’; ‘What has happened at Imperial College?’; ‘Where are those muggles?’. There were no messages from Ginny or any other Weasley.

There had been some short-term arrangements made during the flight. Harry had recommended that the teams should be careful until the attitude of the Ministry was known. Daphne would return to her mother’s house and stay there until further notice. Leo, John, Mary, Louisa, Graham, Roland, and Robert would return to Purbeck Square and stay there. Pimlico Security would maintain a watch in the square and in the mews. The Pimlico Super would return to running the London operation.

Anastasia and Jonathan would move into Swanfleet Hall. Anastasia’s son Peter would be collected from his father and taken to Swanfleet. Pimlico Security set up a permanent security watch on the house. 

An invitation had been sent to MACUSA to send a dedicated liaison official to work with Anastasia leading up to her appointment with the MACUSA Directors.

The letter to Kingsley was carefully composed. There was no telling who would read it. The bare facts were laid out. The natural magic flow at the Imperial College had been shut down. There were no more muggle machines channelling magic. Harry had been to the USA where he had assisted MACUSA to free Leo Blake. Another uncontrolled natural magic flow in the USA had been shut down. The muggle machines channelling magic in the USA were no longer functioning. They were all being held by MACUSA.

The parchment was signed and sent by owl.

Two hours later Kingsley Shacklebolt arrived at 12 Grimauld Place. 

“This is a difficult situation. I must insist that those muggles be Obliviated as soon as possible. Harry, you must see that we have no choice.”

“Minister, what happens next week when a muggle somewhere else in the world does the same thing. The Professor in California copied out how to do it and published it under his own name. It has gone out all over the world. All it needs is an uncontrolled natural magic flow to break out again and our world will be in danger.” Harry was feeling weary.

“We will just have to deal with that when it happens.” Kingsley was determined.

“What if it happens in China or Russia, places where wizards are in deep hiding. The muggles there would have all the time in the world to work out how to use it. They could easily be the wrong sort of muggle. We have got away with it here because our muggles are on our side. The two in the USA were just slow to work it out and were captured by a dark wizard before they could find out too much. They were not the right sort of people. MACUSA has Obliviated the technician, but the Professor was vanished by Lecky, the dark wizard. I am hoping that MACUSA can work back through the spells he cast to track down what happened.”

Harry prepared for his most difficult proposal.

“Minister, we have to establish a special arrangement for our muggle scientist allies. The wizarding world is too far behind the pace on this issue. We do not have a single wizard or witch who is anywhere near understanding what it is that is happening.”

“Harry, try to tell me what you know.”

“We have always treated magic as though we create it. That wizards perform magic because it comes from us, it is ours. It does what we want because it originates in us and is controlled by our thought and words. Natural uncontrolled flows of magic have been known since before anyone wrote anything down about magic. We always assumed that it was because there were a lot of wizards and witches located in one place that magic flowed and made that place special. The scientists have proof that it is something quite different.”

“They admit that magic is real, they can prove it using science?” Kingsley did not sound convinced.

“Proof is a hard subject, they have theories which they have used to design experiments, which have worked. In that way they have proof. They need to do a lot more work and run a lot more experiments before they can claim that they are certain about what is happening.”

“You are not convincing me.” Kingsley was definitely not convinced.

“The last talk I had with Dr Zaitseva went something like this. Muggle scientists have observed many inconsistencies in the universe. The relationship between the earth, the planets, the sun, all the suns and planets in our galaxy, all the galaxies in the universe, doesn’t add up. There are always unexplained forces at work. There are explanations about why there are problems. One of the explanations is that there are multiple parallel universes which co-exist with our own universe and interact with it. There might be many universes which occupy the same space. If we step from one universe to another it could be like entering a come-and-go space.”

“They have an explanation for magical spaces?”

“Yes, they asked the magic flow to make a space and it did.”

“What sort of space are you talking about?”

“One of the experiments the technician did in the USA was to ask the magic flow to create the Crac des Chevaliers. It is a Crusader Castle located in the south of Syria. The magic flow created the castle. It is a fair replica but not exactly the same. It appears when the person who knows about it wants to use it and disappears when it is not needed. It is a come-and go space. The original grassland where it is located is still there. It gets swapped from our universe to another universe created just for that purpose, in the same space.”

“Are all come-and-go spaces the same.”

“Dr Zaitseva says they are the same.” Harry paused to collect his thoughts.

“Then we come to the magic flow itself. Parallel universes don’t fit perfectly one with one another. There are imbalances so one pulls and pushes against the others. The energy flows out of the places where the universes are out of balance and appears to us as a flow of uncontrolled natural magic. There is a constant field of energy created by the general imbalance which we see as magic. Wizards, witches and magical creatures all focus the magic which is already there.”

“So, wizards and witches don’t make magic, it is there all the time.” Kingsley might be catching on.

“The scientists have also observed that magic seems to have its own sort of intelligence. They don’t have an explanation for this. In a magic flow a muggle electronic device will ask it to do something, and it does it. It doesn’t have to be fully formed with every detail, the magic flow connects with the human running the process and gets the detail out of their mind. Something like Legilimens. It is not human. There is no hint of knowing right from wrong, it just does what it is asked to do. There is no dark magic, that comes when a human directs the magic.”

“What are you proposing?”

“I want the Ministry to establish a small team to investigate how to predict natural magic flows and find out what we can do to control them. We should co-ordinate this with MACUSA. They already have the evidence in their possession of what was done in the USA. We will need at least two from the Department of Mysteries, and two researchers from MACUSA, and Dr Zaitseva, and Jonathan Brown, Dr Zaitseva’s assistant.”

“Are you sure that MACUSA will take it seriously?”

“Jane Goodman and Colin Patterson, who were the MACUSA aurors on the case have requested the same from MACUSA. Dr Zaitseva has been invited to speak to the Directorate in Washington.”

Kingsley looked at his shoes for a long time. Harry was holding his breath.

“Let me talk to the head of the Department of Mysteries. I will delay the orders to Obliviate the muggles for now. Don’t disappear again Harry and get some rest. You are still on leave.”


	39. A Visit to St Mungos

The piles of messages slowly began to diminish. Most didn’t need an answer. Some went straight into the fire. The rest could wait a week before going into the fire. Finally, a letter Harry wanted to receive. Olivia Greengrass had received an owl from Malfoy Manor. Lucius had written out the charm spell needed to remove the ancient Malfoy curse on the Weasley family. He had performed the spell. The charm had created a rune which was sent to Olivia as proof that the curse had been lifted. The lease agreement with the favoured wizard farmer had been signed. The Greengrass Potions supply contracts were now in place.

It was now up to Harry to approach Arthur Weasley to find out about the Weasley side of the issue. Dragons were easier.

Harry visited Leo. He was slowly recovering. Leo began to reveal what he had gone through while imprisoned. He knew that the privation and the attacks by Legilimens would have broken him quickly before being trained in Occlumency. Once again, he owed Daphne his life.

The fireplace in the Grimauld Place kitchen flared. Harry flooed in from Purbeck Square. Kreacher called out; “Master, Master, The Molly and Master Weasley are waiting for you in the parlour.”

No time to prepare; no idea of how to even start; Harry made his way to the parlour.

“Harry! “

Molly rushed Harry and enveloped him in her best hug. Arthur took Harry’s hand and pumped his arm.

“We were so worried about you. You just disappeared. We didn’t know where you had gone. The aurors didn’t know. What were you doing?”

“I can’t tell you too much right now. The short story is that Pimlico Security took me to the USA with a team to rescue Leo. He is back at Purbeck Square now. He will need a while to recover but he will be OK.”

“Kingsley and the aurors thought that we would never see him again. There were no ransom demands, nothing. Couldn’t you tell us something?” Molly had an accusing note in her voice.

“That’s a problem. What happened is absolutely top secret, only Kingsley knows anything about it right now. It will come out eventually, one way or another. How are you?”

Arthur sat down and motioned Harry to sit. “Harry, I’ve had some bad news. We’ve just come from St Mungos. I’ve been seeing the healers for a week. They told me that I’m dying.”

This was not supposed to happen. Wizards regularly lived past one hundred and twenty. Arthur was barely half that age now.

“What is it? What is going on?” Harry was genuinely stunned.

“My father, his father, going back for ages, they all died young. Younger than they should. The healer said something that I can’t really accept.” Arthur was pale.

“Do you want to tell me?”

“He said that the healers have seen this happen in other families. The head of the household dies young of things that shouldn’t happen. They say that it could be caused by an old curse or vow made by an ancestor, and it is still active today. The vow still works but the consequences are that the head of the family just wears out before they should.”

Harry waited, looking for the right words to say. “Arthur, that does happen. You expect it in muggle families, but it also hurts wizard families as well. Why don’t you search through the family journal, go right back to the earliest times, look for anything. It might be something that you would never say yourself. Ancient Briton, Celtic, Roman, Saxon, those times are just as important as today, for things like this. If you find something, you will have to renounce it.”

“All right Harry, I’ll do that. This is so different from our other news. You know, this is so strange, we aren’t poor anymore. I mean, we aren’t Viscount Pimlico rich but Gringotts have been sending us owls. Usually they want us to attend to the lack of galleons in our vault, but now it’s the reverse. Debts owed to my father, and grandfathers going back generations are all being paid, with interest. There are even business agreements going back generations, which I didn’t know about, that will pay us twice my salary every year.”

“Ah! I don’t know for sure, but could it be that someone, an old enemy perhaps, has lifted a curse on your family. A curse that condemned you to poverty.”

“What old enemy, Harry? Who do you mean?” Molly was getting angry.

“You know that better than me. Weasleys have been bailiffs, and Ministry officials for generations. You and your ancestors have upset a lot of people who don’t think anything of putting a curse on you.” Arthur looked as though that he understood.

“When you go home, I’ll come with you to collect Ginny. I think it is safe for us to get back to normal now, whatever that is.” The Weasleys both looked down.

“Oh Harry! It’s been difficult. Ron, George, the other boys have been so angry with you. They’ve been so cruel. Ginny defended you but she was confused herself. She didn’t know what to think. I know you sent her to stay with us while you were away to keep her safe. You haven’t done that before.” Molly was crying now.

Harry didn’t want to say anymore, but he had to. “I also wanted Ginny to protect you. I can’t tell you how close the whole wizarding world has come to disaster. It has just been averted. The kidnapping, and the secret mission were all connected to a most serious threat. I didn’t get any help from the ministry at all. Don’t tell anyone, I might still have to go away. I will take Ginny, but she and you might not like it. Please carry on and search for that curse, or vow or whatever.” 


	40. A New Spell

The Weasleys flooed back to The Burrow. Harry wrote notes to Olivia Greengrass, and Leo and then sent them by owl. The feud could, at last, be defeated.

The Burrow looked the same. Harry disapparated in the orchard and walked to the house. He stepped in through the open door. Molly and Arthur were in the kitchen. Ginny came down the stairs. She rushed at Harry and wrapped her arms around him, he was pushed back against the door post. Ginny wouldn’t let him move. She was crying hard. There was a rush of bodies towards him. Harry saw wands being drawn. He drew his wand and cast a silent spell. 

It was a new one. Harry had asked Jonathan to request a new spell from the magic flow in California. It would be two spells put together. ‘Petrificus Totalus’ and ‘Wingardium Leviosa’ were two old spells he had learned at Hogwarts. They were useful but had their drawbacks. They were both long to say. The full body bind spell would freeze the subject who would then crash down on the ground. The levitation spell would stop the potentially harmful full-length face plant. The new spell would freeze the subject, then gently lift them off the ground leaving them under the control of the spell casting wizard. The subject was left fully conscious and unable to shout rude words.

Harry practised until he could cast it silently and rapidly. It sounded like Pet-owl. The bodies now floated gently with their feet just off the floor. They were, of course, George, and Ron. Arthur and Molly gasped and hugged each other. Ginny looked up at her brothers. Her tears immediately changed to shrieks of laughter.

While the brothers bobbed up and down in the breeze blowing through the door, Harry explained what his new spell was doing. The brothers glared.

“That was wonderful, Harry. Can we add the Bat-Bogey Hex to it?”

‘Darling, go and get your things, we should get out of here before it wears off.” Ginny ran up the stairs.

Molly and Arthur had gone from horrified to heaving with laughter. 

The floating bodies were lined up in front of Harry.

“You guys are prime examples of something I’ve heard in the motorcycle riding fraternity. You’ve been running around with your mouth in top and your mind in neutral. I know you won’t listen to anything I say, but that won’t stop me from trying. I want you to go to your own homes and think about what you can do to help your father deal with what he is facing now.”

Ginny ran down the stairs. “Bye Mum, Dad, come to dinner tomorrow night.” She pecked them both on their cheeks, grabbed Harry who waved as he was dragged out the door. The apparation crack bounced around the room. The suspended bodies floated down to the floor.

“What did he mean? What is going on?”


	41. Clippings

**The Daily Prophet**

Witches around the world are somehow coping with their disappointment today. Yes, it has happened, Leo Blake, The Viscount Pimlico today married Miss Daphne Greengrass. Leo, son of Wizarding War hero Sirius Black, has been very camera shy with no official photographs being released before today. His personal wealth is legendary both in galleons and muggle pounds. 

The Greengrass family are delighted with their new family member. Olivia Greengrass has not hidden her admiration for Leo, “He didn’t give up, despite some difficult moments. My Daphne wasn’t sure about him at first but Leo won her over with his kindness and strength of character.”

The happy couple’s supporters were Astoria Malfoy, sister to Daphne, and Harry Potter, brother to Leo by adoption.

Guests at the wedding included Harry and Ginevra Potter, Draco and Astoria Malfoy, Lady Louisa Blake and her husband Graham Proud, Olivia Greengrass, Narcissa Malfoy, Andromeda Tonks, Arthur and Molly Weasley, Ron and Hermione Weasley and many other magical and muggle luminaries.

The ceremony took place in the London suburb of Surbiton, at Saint Peters Church. Friends of the couple and the Blake, Greengrass, and Black families were invited to a simple reception in the church hall where magical and muggle guests mingled in a happy atmosphere. 

Little is known of Leo before he was introduced to the wizarding world. His mother, Lady Louisa Blake didn’t add to our meagre knowledge of Leo’s early life, but she obviously loves Daphne, who she described as the loving daughter she never had until now.

Rumour has it that at Hogwarts, Daphne was known as the ‘Slytherin Ice Queen’. Well, you can forget about the ‘Ice’ part. Daphne was radiant and confidant. She was gracious and charming as she conversed with guests both great and humble.

Many of you may be amazed at this, Arthur and Molly Weasley were seen happily talking to Draco and Astoria Malfoy, and later were seen in close conversation with Narcissa Malfoy. Something has changed in the wizard society. 

The Viscount and Viscountess Pimlico are on their honeymoon, cruising the Mediterranean on the Viscount’s private yacht. They travelled first to Paris to unveil a memorial to three Pimlico Security employees who were recently killed on duty.

**MACUSA News**

Marriages: Colin Patterson and Anastasia Zaitseva

Auror Colin Patterson married Doctor Anastasia Zaitseva today in simple ceremony in the gardens of Swanfleet Hall in Dorset, England.

Swanfleet Hall is the country home of The Viscount and Viscountess Pimlico, who were guests at the ceremony and hosted the reception in the baronial splendour of Swanfleet Hall. It really is baronial; The Viscount and Viscountess are known as Baron and Lady Purbeck when they are residing at Swanfleet.

Guests included Harry Potter and Ginevra Potter, The Viscount and Viscountess Pimlico, Lady Louisa Blake, and her husband Graham Proud, Jane and Ezekiel Goodman, Jonathan Brown, Mariette Edgecombe, and friends from MACUSA and the Imperial College, London.

Anastasia and Colin will live in London until Anastasia completes a major research program which she is supervising at the Imperial College. Colin is currently on the staff of the MACUSA Co-operation Office in London.

Anastasia and Colin met during the combined MACUSA, and Pimlico Security operation to rescue Viscount Pimlico from kidnappers. It is never correct to identify security staff by name, but we must mention that many of the guests were Pimlico Security staff who participated in that operation.

**The Greengrass Botanicals People**

We have more happy news from California. Greengrass California Manager, Mariette Edgecombe announced her betrothal to Jonathan Brown. Jonathan and Mariette met during the mission to rescue Leo Blake, the billionaire who had been kidnapped by a criminal gang and held prisoner at a remote ranch. Not many details of that episode have been released by authorities in the USA or in the UK.

Jonathan is a scientist who is completing his PhD in Theoretical Physics at the University of California, Berkeley. 

One detail of interest mentioned by Mariette is that her financial future is now secure due to reward money paid out to each civilian member of that mysterious mission. The mission not only recovered Viscount Pimlico, it also recovered a fabulous horde of stolen treasures and money collected by the gang over many years. Most of the horde had substantial rewards paid out for its recovery.

**Muggle Mumbles**

A special note for all our readers who are lovers of muggle cars. Wizarding War hero Harry Potter has been spotted driving an impressive Mark 2 Jaguar. The beautiful deep red classic car was parked outside The Leaky Cauldron while Harry, Ginny and friends were enjoying a quiet drink in the main bar. Only one butterbeer Harry, don’t let your blood alcohol go over the limit.

**The Daily Prophet**

A memorial service was held today for Julius Greengrass. Julius disappeared on the night of the Battle of Hogwarts. His remains were recently discovered in a shallow grave on the grounds of the house which was the Greengrass family home.

The main speaker was Kingsley Shacklebolt, other speakers were former business partners who Julius saved from persecution and death during the Wizarding War.

Julius’ wand was found nearby. Analysis of the spells cast by the wand showed that Julius never cast an illegal spell. Julius was killed by the snatcher Magnus Morton. Morton is being held by MACUSA. He is awaiting sentencing after being found guilty of several murders in the USA. The MACUSA prosecutor has asked for the death penalty.

Julius was interred in the Greengrass family mausoleum in a private ceremony.

**Witch Weekly**

Last week, Olivia Greengrass entertained family and friends at her new London house. The housewarming party reflected the recent restoration of the Greengrass family fortunes. The Georgian terrace house at Purbeck Square is next door to the London residence of her new son-in-law Leo and daughter Daphne, The Viscount and Viscountess Pimlico.

Olivia will continue to reside at her house near York and use the Purbeck Square house while visiting London.

Olivia is not the only Greengrass to change her address. Olivia’s daughter Astoria and her husband Draco Malfoy have moved into a fine terrace house in Kensington. The house was a wedding gift to Astoria from an un-named family member.

**The Planet Zorg Bugle**

The crew of the inter-planetary cargo carrier 554786 picked up an alien life form on their latest run to the outer moons of planet 5. The creature was enclosed in a sphere of pure energy which disappeared as soon as it was recovered and placed in secure storage.

The creature has survived for four planet revolutions, so the assumption can be made that its own environment is not that different to our own. The creature’s mental stability is another matter. It screams and climbs the walls whenever any attempt is made to communicate with it.

A note has been found pinned to the creature’s clothing. It reads:

_Postage Paid_

_Non-returnable_

_Deliver to galaxy NGC4151, also known as the Eye of Sauron._

If anyone knows what this means please send your ideas to the City Zoo, Alien Creatures Division.


End file.
